Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/473

 Reviews and Notes 469 It remains to note the thorough-going index of sixteen pages, and our survey is complete. Professor Adams in this case, as always with him, has done a conscientious, workmanlike job. Within its scope it is complete. To the historians of the cen- sorship and the theatre it is equally welcome. One could wish, however, that he had extended back to include the desultory scraps of Revels Accounts that lie between the present compila- tion and Feuillerat's, so as to complete the orderly edition of the Accounts. And we must not forget that Professor Adams has only reprinted documents which have been printed before. The Restoration period remains a storehouse of unpublished evidences which has been scarcely tapped. I remember that in 1912 Dr. Watson Nicholson, who was working with me in the Public Records Office, London, told me that he was collect- ing quantities of such materials in the Lord Chamberlain's Office. Too busy then to verify his statements, I have been looking ever since for the appearance of these buried jewels in vain. HAROLD N. HILLEBRAND. University of Illinois. THE REALISTIC PRESENTATION OF AMERICAN CHARACTERS IN NATIVE AMERICAN PLAYS PRIOR TO EIGHTEEN SEVENTY. By Perley Isaac Reed, Ph.D. The Ohio State University Bulletin, Vol. XXII, Number 26. Columbus, May, 1918. Pp. 168. A new treatise on the older American drama is always of interest to those who desire to see the literature of this country investigated in all its branches. The number of such treatises has shown an encouraging increase during the last few years. It must be admitted that the material with which they deal makes, with a few exceptions, a scholarly rather than an artistic appeal, for our earlier plays as a whole have even less claim to permanence than those of the last four or five decades. Never- theless the older dramatists are worthy of close attention because their work reflects the taste of their time and often throws some light on the social and political conditions of a past epoch. Dr. Reed's study is based on the latter consideration; in his own words, it was undertaken "with the object of determin- ing to what extent, in what manner, and with what fidelity these playwrights have drawn their characters from distinctive American life, just as it actually was, during the different historical periods prior to 1870." Starting his investigation with the middle of the eighteenth century, when play writing really began in the colonies, Dr. Reed proceeds to the year of