Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/486

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478 SHORT NOTICES July inconsistencies noted and examined. Even on the date of the adoption of the modern reckoning from 1 January, the ordinary books need correction. It is to be regretted that this useful paper should be priced as high as 3s. C. J. The university of London has published a Catalogue of the Manuscripts and Autograph Letters in the University Library . . . of London, compiled by Mr. E. A. Rye, Goldsmiths' Librarian (University of London Press, 1921). In the forefront of its manuscripts stands the Shirley copy of Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince, a rhymed chronicle known only from one other manuscript, namely that in the library of Worcester College, Oxford. The Shirley manuscript, although described in the fourth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, did not attract public attention until the sale of Lord Mostyn's library in 1920, when it was purchased by members of London University and presented to the prince of Wales. His Royal Highness has deposited it in the University Library upon per- manent loan. None of the other manuscripts described in this catalogue are of outstanding importance. The great majority of them belong to the library of economic literature formed by the Goldsmiths' Company and presented to the university in 1903. They consist mainly of tracts and papers relating to the English mint and currency, as well as to the trade, revenue, and finance of this country in the late sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. They include papers of the exchequer, the treasury, and the committee of trade and plantations. A large number of them have come, through various channels, from the George Chalmers sale of 1842, and many are from the Phillips Collection. H. H. E. C. Historical workers will be grateful for the shilling pamphlet Photographs of Manuscripts (London : Stationery Office, 1922), which gives the replies of his majesty's ministers abroad to an inquiry of the secretary of state for foreign affairs about the facilities for getting photographs and rotographs in the principal foreign libraries. We regret to notice that no information was vouchsafed by Germany, and we should add that the pamphlet relates to libraries but not to archives. W. The Carnegie Foundation for International Peace has issued in two volumes the work of Professor J. de Louter of Utrecht, Le Droit Inter- national Public Positif (London : Milford, 1920). It is a translation, with some slight modifications, of a work in the Dutch language published by Nijhoff in 1910, now out of print. The translation had been under- taken before the war, and when the war was over the Carnegie Trust encouraged the author to complete his task. The result is a systematic and laborious exposition of the principles of Public International Law as they presented themselves to the author's vision in 1914. As such, the work no doubt has its value, but it must be admitted that the baked meats of the pre-war period furnish forth a very cold collation to readers who have the experience of the war behind them. There is no index nor marginal summary. If these obstacles do not deter the reader, he will find the work valuable as a book of reference. As the title indicates, the author belongs to the Positive School. He insists on the moral nature of