466 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July The chapter on the characteristics of the script is good, but too short, and too much occupied with citations from other authors. The chapter which contains the most original contribution to the subject is that on the abbreviations. This excellent chapter is followed by shorter ones on orthography, word-division, punctuation, diacritical signs, and the development of Visigothic writing, all treated rather summarily. It was evidently not the author's intention to treat exhaustively the various problems that would naturally be discussed under these heads. The descriptions of the plates are brief and informing, the transcriptions are not without occasional errors. On p. 113 the omission signs are not transcribed, nor the word supra, which follows the insertion in the lower margin. I cannot follow Dr. Clark's judgement in the dates assigned to some of his manuscripts. To me plate 37 seems to be of the ninth rather than the tenth century ; the same is true of plate 49 ; plate 64 (Terence) I should date in the tenth rather than the eleventh. The work concludes with seventy plates, giving specimens taken from forty-five different manuscripts. Of these, nineteen come from Madrid libraries, nine from the Escorial, seven from Leon. Burgos furnishes three, Barcelona two, Cordova one. The only foreign country put under contribution is Italy : Verona, Monte Cassino, La Cava, and the Vatican furnishing one manuscript each. Most of the manuscripts reproduced contain, as was to be expected, works of the Fathers : Isidore, Gregory, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, Beatus. Biblical and liturgical manu- scripts come next in point of numbers. Two manuscripts deal with secular law, one with ecclesiastical; one reproduces a classical author, Terence. For historians the most interesting plate is the facsimile (no. 59) of the marriage contract between the Cid and Ximena, dated 1074. The facsimiles are unfortunately so much reduced in size that their use tries the eyes. Moreover, such facsimiles give a very erroneous impression. The best of reproductions fail to give all that the eye can see in the original, but a reduced facsimile is from the point of view of scientific palaeography totally inadequate. For all this the work is of first importance to palaeo- graphy, and is indispensable to all future investigators of Spanish manu- scripts. E. A. Lowe.
