1921 SHORT NOTICES 313 bear every sign of care and knowledge in their editing and annotations, but the tables of misprints at the end are by no means complete, especially in the first volume (e. g. p. 13, a wrong date (1330), and wrong reference : Aberdeen did not write to Wellington from Strathfieldsaye). But in the enormous mass of material — the three volumes contain about 1,800 pages — a few misprints are inevitable. H. L. The new edition, with introduction and notes by Mr. Henry Bruce, should give new life to Colonel Meadows Taylor's Story of My Life (Oxford : University Press, 1920), one of the best books of Anglo-Indian recollections. Mr. Bruce's introduction and notes are a valuable addition, and besides throwing light on Taylor's literary work as a whole, reintroduce us to the generally unknown Anglo-Indians of pre-Mutiny days, when Englishmen made India their home for forty or sixty years together and acquired a knowledge of the Indian now rarely, if ever, equalled. If he has some of the invariable dislike of those who have served in the south for ' the vast enervating plains of Bengal ', it is amply made up for by his excursus into Mahratta and Moslem history, and many tempting by-ways — as of the history of the negro in India — of which there is much yet to be written. If additional notes were to be suggested, they would be perhaps on those forces of the Bombay and the Coast armies of whose loyalty in the Mutiny Taylor writes so gladly (and army commissions reported so strongly), now long fallen, for many curious reasons, from their high estate. But one could hardly go to India better inspired than by this edition of a true classic. K. F. M. Joseph Cuvelier's Les Archives de VEtat en Belgique pendant la Guerre, 1914-18 (s.l., s.a.) is a special number of the Annuaire which corresponds to the report of the deputy-keeper of the public records in England or Ireland. It acquires a special interest from the. circum- stances of the period, and the portions of it which relate to the damage and inconvenience caused by the German occupation of Belgium will be eagerly read throughout Europe. The punctual performance of its duty by the staff, in discouraging conditions, is something to be proud of. The administration of the archives was somewhat disorganized by the separa- tion of Flemish and Walloon territory, but this did not proceed far enough before the armistice to destroy M. Cuvelier's superintendence of the archive service. The actual losses of documents, though serious both at Arlon and at Liege, were fewer and less important than might have been expected. A thirteenth-century cartulary of the abbey of Val. -St. -Lambert and some early charters of that of Saint-Hubert are the most interesting. The losses seem to be due to forced removals and the use of the premises for barracks by insufficiently disciplined troops. The administrative action of Dr. Richter of Wetzlar, whom the German government entrusted with an inspection of the archives, seems to have been mainly beneficial. The most serious damage to the buildings seems to have been the result of an allied bomb at Bruges, but this, fortunately, did little harm to the documents. No doubt there has been much destruction of communal archives in the war area, but full accounts of this are not yet forthcoming.
