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Ireland: The Life of Si}- Henry Vane 369 proach of the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth, when the inter- national significance, not so much of Calvin as of his work, is to be celebrated in 1909 at Geneva. Herbert Darling Foster. The Life of Sir Henry J'ane the Yoiingcr, zcitit a History of the Events of his Time. By Villi..m W. Irel.xd. (Xew York: E. P. Dutton and Company. 1906. Pp. .xv, 513.) Up to the present year there have been four elaborate biographies of young Sir Henry Vane, the hero and martyr of the English Common- wealth beloved by Milton: two by Englishmen, George Sikes, Vane's contemporary and disciple(i662), and John Forster; two by Americans, C. W. Upham and James K. Hosmer. To those lives Mr. Ireland adds a fifth, an English book though with an American imprimatur. Mr. Ireland has had a wide experience in the British empire (during which he has seen some military service) and considerable practice in writing books, and is strongly in sympathy with the ideas of the English Com- monwealth — a proper equipment for a historian of the Civil War in England and the biographer of one of the chief figures of the time. His presentment is clear, his research has been long-continued and compre- hensive, his judgment of men and events is not rashly or ignorantly given. While it is abundantly plain that Mr. Ireland has been to the sources, there are many documents not cited by him of which we think he might well have availed himself. Of the writings of John Cotton he apparently has no knowledge, yet these were the foundations of the Independency which set up the English Commonwealth. We do not observe that he makes more than cursory reference to the records of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the Darby House Committee, or the Council of State, the executive bodies which in succession managed affairs; yet Vane was a leading member in all of them, and his activity cannot well be under- stood without a "Study of them ; they are easily accessible in the Public Record Office in Fetter Lane. Nothing indicates that Mr. Ireland has used with care the manuscript diaries of members of the Long Parha- ment, now in the British Museum, or many things contained in the Thomasson Tracts that make the period vivid. The important works of C. Harding Firth, and the Clarke Papers, which throw such light upon the opinions and action of the army, the rank and file of the Iron- sides, we do not find referred to; nor indeed do we regard Mr. Ireland's consideration of the influence of those humble but sturdy soldiers in pro- moting republicanism, while their leaders hung back, as adequate. As to Cromwell, no doubt a character hard to understand, we do not think the documents bear out Mr. Ireland's conception that his noble early fire be- came quenched in selfishness and that he died an unworthy usurper and tyrant. While Mr. Ireland has not used some important sources, he ap- pears also to be uninformed or unappreciative of the conclusions of recent