pronoun 'I' to the editor, Dr. Moir, instead of to the manuscript. The error on p. 189 of citing William Stewart's words as Bellenden's is unimportant in itself, but ought not to have appeared in a chapter in which the accuracy of Blind Harry is in question.
Even if Dr. Schofield's literary argument were stronger than it is, and established a fair presumption that 'Blind Harry was only the author's pseudonym', the solution does not help much towards an explanation of the historical difficulties in the poem itself. The relationship in which this stands to the real history of the national hero will still present obscure problems which are not solved by substituting an unknown courtly poet for the humble minstrel to whom John Major bears witness. Nor has Dr. Schofield suggested any adequate reason for the concealment of the real authorship, a concealment which in fact would have been futile if, as he admits, 'it is probable that when his book was written there were many persons in the secret, if secret it was'. If there was no secret, or if it was an open one, why should both Major and Stewart have acquiesced, in the attribution to a fictitious Blind Harry? Stewart at least was sufficiently at home in courtly circles to have known the truth.
The high reputation of the Dutch official record publications is confirmed and even increased by these four large volumes. It would be hard to imagine a more thorny editorial task than that of dealing with the resolutions of the states-general for this period. The materials were dispersed among more than a score of archives in Holland and Belgium, and the work of collecting them was increased by the outbreak of war. They were voluminous, miscellaneous in character, incomplete, and untidy. For some of the earlier years considerable parts of them had been printed or summarized in earlier publications, some of them scarce and obscure. Fortunately, the experience of earlier workers like Gachard and De Jonge gave some clues as to the best method of working, the directing commission drew up an elaborate set of rules for the edition, and the work was given to Dr. Japikse, who has brought to it the patience, exactness, and learning which it required. The result is an orderly and convenient presentation of a mass of matter which only the most expert handling could have rescued from confusion. The resolutions are not given in one chronological series, though careful chronological tables are appended, but under a series of subject-headings, varying in number with the changes in the business done by the states-general, of which we may mention as specimens: 'Meeting of the States-General', 'War', 'Foreign Relations' (with subdivisions for the various powers), and 'Ecclesiastical Affairs'. Reference is thus made easy, and the indexes and other aids of the kind make it as easy and certain as can be. The more important of the resolutions hitherto unprinted are given in extenso; others are summarized; some, of no conceivable importance, are omitted altogether. The whole is illustrated
