1899.] LITEEATUBE. 79
many English readers no doubt hardly realised that there was enough material for such a history as this. Dr. Hyde's study of the old Irish literature is therefore not only valuable to Celtic scholars but reveals a new world of study to many other literary students. Work of a similar kind among literatures little known or entirely ignored has been done in the series of " Short Histories of the Literatures of the World " (Heine- mann) by Mr. W. G. Aston in his excellent book, A History of Japanese literature, and in a not quite so complete History of Bohemian literature, by Count Llitzow. Two books have been added to the series of "Periods of European Literature " (Blackwood) — The Fourteenth Century, by F. J. Snell, and The Augustan Ages, by Oliver Elton, both works of merit, but suffering somewhat from the rather mechanical delimitation imposed by the conditions of the series. A special aspect of the development of English literature is ably dealt with by Mr. H. A. Beers in A History of English Romantioisni In the Eighteenth Century (Kegan Paul).
The issue of two important reprints has now been finished. The great edition of The Diary of Samuel Pepys (G. Bell), which Mr. Henry Wheatley began many years ago, has been completed with a ninth volume containing an index, and a tenth containing "Supplementary Pepysiana " ; and The Blographloal Edition of Thackeray (Smith, Eider), edited by his daughter Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has also been com- pleted; while an edition of the Bronte novels, which is to be on a somewhat similar plan — the editors being Mrs. Humphry Ward and Mr. C. K. Shorter— has been begun under the title of The Haworth Bronte' (Smith, Elder).
One book of much interest containing a work of old English litera- ture is The Complete "Works of John Cower, vol. i. (Clarendon Press), edited by G. C. Macaulay. It can hardly be described as a reprint in the ordinary sense, because the work contained in this first volume is new to modern readers. Gower wrote three works : one in English, one in Latin and one in French. The two first have been printed ; the MS. of the third, "The Speculum Meditantis," was not known to exist until it was recently discovered in the Cambridge University Library, and this is now edited by Mr. Macaulay.
Lastly we may single out of a good deal of recent Dante literature another volume from the pen of one of the most distinguished of English Dantists, Dr. E. Moore. It is called Studies in Dante, second series (Clarendon Press). Among other subjects the author discusses, with his well-known skill and authority, Dante as a religious teacher, eighteenth century opinions on Dante, and the reality of Beatrice.
History. Although during the past year one or two of our most learned historians have been silent, it cannot be said to have been a period unproductive of good, and even great, work. It has been signalised by the publication of two volumes — the seventh and eighth — completing Dr. Thomas Hodgkin's Italy and Her Invaders (Clarendon Press). These bring the story up to the death of Charlemagne, and are respectively entitled "The Frankish Invasions" and "The Frankish Empire." The
