Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/290

 282 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April enforce the lesson that the authority of the Crown must be paramount, that all must obey this authority, and that all must render all possible respect to the wearer of it. There is nothing novel in this idea : it has long been the property of scholars, yet by his skilful marshalling of his material the author presses home his point with ability. In a dozen chapters Mr. Einstein analyses the individualism of the sixteenth century, and in this connexion he has much to say which deserves to be pondered. The old order had been the empire or the church, the commune, the gild, the scholastic system : the individual is always part of some group, and has no existence apart from it. The new order was the state, the national church, the merchant, the individual. The old order had been authority and asceticism : the new was authority, but mingled with it there were reason and joy in the whole of life. For a thousand years there had been as much authority in social life as in intellectual. Unknown men had been content to build the cathedrals of the middle ages, whereas the men of the new age asserted themselves to the utmost. The thirst for glory became unquenchable. The statues used to be within the cathedral, for they were erected to the glory of God. Now they stood in the market-place to be seen of men. Man used to be bound to a bishop, a lord, a municipality, a school, or a body. Now he proudly steps on the stage as himself, eager to develop his capacities for his own benefit, with boundless confidence in his will, his superiority, , and his infinite variety. The body, as the author clearly perceives, dissolves into the units which compose it. There is no longer the papacy ; there is the pope, who is a lord like other lords. There is no longer the city ; there is the prince. There is no longer the university ; there is the spirit of humanism. The painter ceases to depict the group ; the portrait is his masterpiece. He used to describe on the walls of cemeteries the triumph of death ; now he describes on the walls of houses the triumph of life. All this and much else is set down in the striking piece of work which Mr. Einstein has given us. ROBERT H. MURRAY. Minutes and Accounts of the Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon and other Records (1553-1620). Vol. i (1553-66). Transcribed by RICHARD SAVAGE with introduction and notes by EDGAR I. FRIPP. (Publications of the Dugdale Society. Vol. i. Oxford, 1921.) THIS well-planned and well-edited volume has a twofold interest, literary and historical. It provides material for portraying the life of Stratford- on-Avon at the time of Shakespeare's birth ; it includes a number of refer- ences to the poet's father, who was for many years prominent in the life of the borough ; further, the excellent introduction and notes point out several passages in Shakespeare's plays which are illustrated by Stratford documents and Stratford doings. The historical interest of the records lies in the transition from the ' ancient borough ' with its Gild of the Holy Cross maintaining school, almshouse, and bridge, to the ' body Corporate and Politic ' of 1553 with its common council, bailiff, and head alderman. Mr. Fripp traces the history of the Gild of the Holy Cross, whose chapel was built in or soon after 1269 and whose schoolhouse dated from 1427-8.