Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/632

 624 SHORT NOTICES October not endure, is excellent. The absence of an index is to be regretted, and most readers would have welcomed the addition of a map. W. F. The reader would be disappointed who hoped to find, in De Twee Reizen van Cosimo de^ Medici, Prins van Toscane, door de Nederlanden, 1667-1669 (Historisch Genootschap gevestigd te Utrecht. Amsterdam : Miiller, 1919), a book with pleasant illustrations like those which adorn the volume of Cosmo's travels in England. In historical craftsman- ship, however, Dr. G. J. Hoogewerff, the secretary of the Dutch Historical Institute in Rome, is very much more advanced than the English editor of a century ago. Not content with publishing the Italian text of the ofl&cial descriptions of the journeys, he adds in full the more important, and in summaries the less important subsidiary accounts, and, as the habit of writing of notes was common to several raembers of the prince's suites, this makes a much fuller and more usefu 1 narrative. Its value is not, of course, political. The young traveller explored social life rather than secrets of state. He saw the sights, in- cluding the studios of the painters, talked and corresponded in Latin with scholars like Nicholas Heinsius, and was addressed in a poem of welcome by Vondel himself. The poem is here reprinted with the other material, and the result is a volume of agreeable reading in three languages, with many attractive descriptions of the splendour and>the simplicity of the republic, qualities each of which in turn caused astonishment among the southern visitors. G. N. C. Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Hammond's The Skilled Labourer, 1760-1832 (London : Longmans, 1919), is the third volume which the authors have devoted to this period. It is a study of the industrial conditions and the conflicts with government of selected groups of wage-earners. Those groups were selected ' about which the fullest records were available '. They are the Northumberland and Durham miners, the cotton and woollen workers, the silk weavers, and framework knitters. As in an earlier volume, the authors make extensive use of Home Office Records, previously unused by social and economic historians. For this volume the Home Office Records used are of first-rate importance. The authors' main interest appears to be in the conflicts with government rather than in the economic history proper, and for these their new material is invaluable. Fresh light is thrown on the Luddite risings and on the attitude and methods of the administrations of Castlereagh and Sidmouth. Spies and agents provocateurs are followed on their unpleasant calling. It must not, however, be supposed that the stories of the struggles with govern- ment and of the armed conflicts which sometimes resulted are the whole content of the book. They are only the parts which are most strictly original. In following them out, fresh light is thrown on such purely economic questions as the existence and scope of trade unions in the age of the combination laws, and on the relations between these unions. And the accounts of industrial organization in several chapters are very useful. The authors have not gone far beyond the recognized industrial histories and the contemporary parliamentary papers for this side of their work ;