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Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain preserved in the Archives at Vienna, Simancas, drid ElsewhJere. Vol. IX. Edward VI. 1547-1549. Edited by Martin A. S. Hume and Royall Tyler. (Stationery Office.) ABOUT half of this Calendar was completed by Major Hume before his death. The rest is the work of Mr. Royall Tyler, who has also thrown into an appendix a number of papers bearing on English affairs, and belonging to the earlier period, which had escaped Major Hume's search. The principal writers whose accounts of and judgments on con- temporary affairs we here follow are Van der Delft, Imperial ambassador in England ; St. Mauris, Imperial ambassador in France ; and Simon Renard, who replaced St. Mauris in April, 1549. Represented by fewer pages, but none the less both entertaining and important, are Juan and Diego de Mendoza, ambassadors respectively in Venice and in Rome ; while there are likewise letters from one or two subordinate agents, and replies and instructions dispatched to these their servants by the Emperor Charles V. and his sister the Regent of the Netherlands.

Much that is both new, in so far as the general student is concerned, and highly illuminating, is here offered. One has but for a moment to realize to himself the mid-sixteenth century, that scene of ever-shifting, inextricable international complications, where religious agitation, not only fierce, but divided among many centres of dis- turbance, now crossed and now was intermingled with political agitation one has but to recall into what a welter of social, political, and religious confusion England in particular was precipitated upon the death of Henry VIII., and again to recollect how more than commonly potent and effective in affairs was, at that period, personality the bare will and ambition of princes, the tenaciousness, craft, or happy faculty of conjec- ture in their servants in order both to value any new chance of examining more closely the strands of the web, and to anticipate a good deal, from such a collection as this, in the way of entertain- ment.

Van der Delft shows himself a rather ineffective agent. He has not the knack of picking up information ; is easily kept " out of it " ; de- pends for everything upon a single man, the Con- troller Paget. If he adds little or nothing that is interesting in the way of detail, he bears instruc- tive witness to the way in which the progress of tbe English Reformation was regarded by a Catholic foreigner. He is amazed at the redun- dancy of preaching the unfortunate young king has to endure " preaching every day before " him ; he detests the uncertainty of the English ecclesiastics, and marvels at the functions allotted to Parliament in the controversy ; he neither possesses nor seeks for any clue to the opinions or desires of the English nation on the subject. The chief international matters upon which he has to report to his master are the relations between England and France, in particular as regards, on the one hand Boulogne, and on the other Scotland and its young queen. These receive far fuller

treatment at the hands of St. Mauris and Simom Renard, whose letters, so far as information is concerned, may be regarded as the staple of the volume.

In the Appendix is included the long and careful paper of instructions written by the Emperor for Don Philip. Among other things, for the better ensuring of his subjects' fidelity,. Philip is recommended to marry again, but, while a French princess, or the Princess d'Albret, or a daughter of the Queen of the Romans, or the daughter of the Queeji Dowager of France while these are mentioned as in divers degrees possible, Mary ofEngland is entirely omitted, even from cursory consideration.

Calendar of State Papers (Foreign Series) of the Reign o/ Elizabeth : January- June, 1583, and Addenda. Preserved in the Public Record Office.- Edited by A. J. Butler and S. C. Lomas.. (Stationery Office.)

TBE papers here brought together are those which the late Arthur John Butler had passed for press shortly before his death, with a number of addi- tional documents belonging to the same period or to periods closely antecedent. The lively and careful Introduction prefixed to them gives all. that is necessary to enable the reader to follow what is happening in the Netherlands, France, and Spain, the countries principally in evidence. The dealings of France with the Netherlands under the auspices of Anjou and the Queen Mother form the storm-centre of politics during this half-year. The character most curiously illustrated is, per- haps, that of Henry III. of France. Of the writers, Cobham and, in the Addenda, Thomas Smith are among the most copious, well-informed, and instructive ; but this volume is remarkable for the number of pens whose work is assembled in it. Want of space forbids our singling out examples of special interest ; but the student of manners and of the inner history of the time will find good store of material in it.

How France is Governed. By Raymond Poincare.

Translated by Bernard Miall. (Fisher Unwin.) THIS book, apparently designed for the instruc- tion of children, and written at times almost childishly, scarcely needed the pompous format accorded to its English translation ; and adults, who are misled by its appearance may be annoyed ( by the author's failure to dissever the common- places of political science from the peculiar features belonging to modern France, a failure which may bewilder, too, its proper readers.

In the historical Introduction it is strange to find the Feudal System subject of labour to- how many scholars ! dismissed in less than three pages ; strange, too, to find scarcely a reference to the " Imperial School " system of ancient Gaul, though even in this chapter some of our readers may care to notice that a cite in Gaul covered the space of several modern " depart- ments." So words change their meaning.

The book exhibits the politician's particular frailties e.g., in criticizing Pascal's dictum on charity, M. Poincar6 seems to forget that a whole can hardly prove better than the sum of its parts. Its sentimentality escapes in the apostrophe " Come with me to the common house, the maison commune, and tell me first if you know a