1921 SHORT NOTICES . 155 Breton duchy, which represents a type of correspondence still rare in the mid-fourteenth century, being of a personal and private character. M. Deprez has added a useful, if not very novel, commentary, sketching the relations of Montfort to Edward III. C. In 1910 1 we pointed out that Mr. A. Hassall had not, in the second edition of his European History Chronologically Arranged, corrected the errors which we had pointed out on its first appearance in 1898. 2 We observe with regret that the third edition (London : Macmillan, 1920) still retains some of these, and that, in his revision, the author has not even altered the cross-references to suit the new pagination. His new British History Chronologically Arranged (London : Macmillan, 1920) is similar in plan, though on a somewhat larger scale. It appears, however, not to be more trustworthy than the earlier work. Thus on p. 216 it states that in 1487 the court of star chamber • probably already existed ', and on p. 270 that it ' owed its origin to the famous Act of 1487 '. Nor is this an isolated mistake. D. The series of Handbooks prepared under the Direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office (London : Stationery Office, 1920) has now reached no. 162, and the latest issues include, besides Mr. C. K. Webster's Congress of Vienna, 3 previously published in another form, several other pamphlets in which the name of the author is given, namely Lord Philli- more's Schemes for Maintaining General Peace, Sir Ernest Satow's Inter- national Congresses, Sir Francis Piggott's Freedom of the Seas, Dr. Hearn- shaw's European Coalitions, Alliances, and Ententes, Mr. Whittuck's International Canals, Mr. E. L. Woodward's Congress of Berlin, and Mr. G. Kaeckenbeeck's International Rivers. E. It is unfortunate that the revolutionary ideas of Mr. G. D. H. Cole do not extend to style. He has adopted and indeed extended in his Social Theory (London : Methuen, 1920) the jargon of the ' academic ' political theorists at whom he sneers. His work is full of new technical terms, many of them extremely unpleasing, and his sentences are over- loaded with a continual succession of abstractions. We believe Mr. Cole to be perfectly capable of writing clear and vigorous English, and it is unfortunate that he should be satisfied with those methods of expression by which men of second-rate intelligence delude for a brief period the more credulous among their neighbours. It may be added that far too little attention has been paid to the task of eliminating printer's errors. In method, too, the book leaves much to be desired. Mr. Cole's early chapters are largely taken up with definitions, and here, if his execution is clumsy, his intention at any rate is sound. When, somewhat tardily, he comes to the main body of his argument, he continues to employ exceedingly abstract arguments in supporting what are really concrete proposals for reform. To give a minor but typical example, he argues that because a man does not put his whole personality into society (in the sense of social organization) therefore society has no right to put a man to death, 1 Ante, xxv. 806. * Ante, xiii. 396. * See ante, xxxiv. 260.
