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A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By HE RY CHARLES LEA 1

A GOOD many years ago, when Bishop \ViIberforce was at 'VVinchester, and the Earl of Beaconsfield \vas a char- acter in fiction, the bishop \vas interested in the proposal to bring over the Utrecht Psalter. Mr. Disraeli thought the scheme absurd. " Of course," he said, U you won't get it." He was told that, nevertheless, such things are, that public manuscripts had even been sent across the Atlantic in order that !vIr. Lea might \vrite a history of the Inquisi- tion. u Yes," he replied, " but they never came back again." The work which has been a\vaited so long has come over at last, and will assuredly be accepted as the most im- portant contribution of the ne\v \vorld to the religious history of the old. Other books have shown the author as a thoughtful inquirer in the remunerative but perilous region \vhere religion and politics conflict, \\' here ideas and institutions are as much considered as persons and events, and history is charged with all the elements of fixity, de- velopment, and change. It is little to say, now, that he equals Buckle in the extent, and surpasses him in the intelligent choice and regulation, of his reading. He is armed at all points. His information is comprehensive, minute, exact, and every\\'here sufficient, if not everywhere complete. In this astonishing press of digested facts there is barely space to discuss the ideas which they exhibit and the la\v \vhich they obey. 11:. 1Iolinier lately \vrote that a \vork with this scope and title U serait, à notre sens, une 1 English Historical Review, 1888. 55 1