Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/896

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

886 Reviews of Books and gives too early a date to the decline of this class. He repeats the erroneous view as to the devastating character of the sixteenth-century inclosures. More and Latimer are quoted, as might be expected, but after Miss Lamond's labors it is surprising to find Hales's Discourse figuring as "William Stafford in 1580" (with a reference to W. Staf- ford, Pictorial History of England). Despite a foot-note citing con- temporary pamphlets and despite further information ready at hand, he asserts the cessation of the inclosure movement in the seventeenth century. The further description of eighteenth-century agricultural conditions is almost equally unsatisfactory. The inclosures of this period are not properly characterized either in their methods, their purposes or their resulting effects. Smaller matters may be passed over; it is of less moment that a quarter (of wheat) should be described as a measure of weight or that the system of " roundsmen " should be completely misunderstood. In a second edition the whole chapter should undergo a thorough revision and it is to be hoped that then at least Hasbach's Die englischcn Landarbeitcr (1894) and H. C. Taylor's brief but useful monograph on the decline of landowning farmers in England will not be neglected. In that revised edition the works of Reuleaux and Matschoss should also be consulted for the history of the steam engine. Even within the limits of time, country and method of treatment which he has judiciously drawn, M. Mantoux has not, unfortunately, fully attained his purpose of deducing the "general notions indispensable for the orientation of new research ". Good in the main as historical description, this skillfully constructed and industrious narrative falls short in economic and social analysis. It does not sufficiently penetrate to the core of the matter. Kulischer's paper in Schmoller's Jahrbiicher (1906) covering a part only of the same great subject, though with far less equipment of fact, poses more searching questions, suggests deeper connections and stimulates more keenly to research. Edwin F. Gay. JVilllani Pitt dcr Jiiiigcre. Von Dr. Felix Salomon, Atisseror- dentlichem Professor der Geschichte an der Universitiit Leipzig. Band I. Bis zum Ausgange der Friedens-periode, Februar, 1793. Telle II. und III. (Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner. 1906. Pp. xiv, 600.) Readers who follow with interest Professor Salomon's activity in the field of English history will greet with pleasure this portion of his work on Pitt. An introduction to the present section and to a con- cluding volume which is to follow, was issued by the author in 1901. This introduction, styled by him the Foundations, was calculated to arouse in the reader misgiving. In its pages patient investigation and sound scholarship were manifest; but the acumen and brilliancy, which suggested the ability in the writer to produce a notable work upon his