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 1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 285 31 January. Surely the news referred to the sailing of a few sail of the Brest fleet early in that month. On p. 171, 1. 13, ' eastward ' should be 1 northward '. In vol. iii, p. 233, ' Canada ' should be either ' Cape Breton ' or ' Nova Scotia '. Also on p. 260, in the account of tactics in the eighteenth century, it is suggested that the bolder tactics enjoined in the fighting instructions of 1760 were due to Anson. Why not equally to Hawke, after his victorious example off Quiberon on 20 November 1759 ? On p. 261, par. 2, ' 1774 ' should read ' 1744 Among the influences that disposed Louis XV to make peace at Aix-la-Chapelle should be named those of his finance minister, Machault, and of la Pompadour, both of whom insisted on the urgent need of ending the war without delay. Attention must finally be drawn to the wealth of information contained in the twelve appendices, and above all to the sound doctrine on naval warfare set forth in the introduction. As an account of the inefficiency in the administration and in the higher commands in 1739-45, and of the gradual improvements wrought by Anson, Martin, Warren, and Hawke in the drill, moral, and fighting power of the fleet, these volumes are invaluable. So soon as it had fair play, the navy worked out its own salvation, and began to evolve the strategic conceptions which were to bear fruit in the Seven Years' war. J. Holland Kobe. Studies in History and Politics. By the Rt. Hon. Herbert Fisher. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1920.) Mr. Fisher has collected eleven of his interesting and suggestive essays, of which only two have not been previously printed. Both of these go back to 1911, and are based on lectures delivered by him as Chichele lecturer at Oxford : ' The Resurgence of Prussia ' and ' Thoughts on the Influence of Napoleon '. In the former he discusses French influence on the reforms of Stein, and on that emancipating edict which was pre- pared before Stein took office but was applied to the whole nation and made law by his decision. By that edict the rigorous distinction of classes, the guild system of trades, ^he serfdom of the peasants and the feudal restrictions on land -transfers were abolished. These changes were due to the fact that Jena had proved revolutionary France to be stronger than mediaeval Prussia, and they were urged by Stein, although he ' hated the French and their ways ', because he was convinced that the social changes he disliked would strengthen his nation. Mr. Fisher argues that even Stein's municipal reforms betray ' some influence of French example ', but his only substantial plea is that ' three not unimportant clauses in Stein's famous measures are almost verbally copied from the French '. He does not quote these clauses, and it is certain that the spirit of the new local government scheme in the towns was very different from the French departmental system. Stein would have extended this self- government to the country districts if he had not been expelled from office, and his attempt to rouse local civic feeling as a stimulus to national pride was far removed from the centralized bureaucratic administration which was established by Napoleon. Mr. Fisher has some suggestive pages on the legislative attempts and