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Minor Notices 433 and in the main the justness, of vision with which the gifted author sets forth the essential problems of the history of American civilization, appreciates their vast importance to the future and in universal history, and suggests their solution. Many an American historical student, indifferent to art, music, literature, and the drama, unmindful of the instruction which might be derived from the history of other " new " countries and colonial populations, might find his horizon profitably widened by reading the last fifty pages of this little book. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Second Series, Vol. XIX. (Boston, 1906, pp. xviii, 583.) The most interesting docu- ments in the volume are the letters of Edmund Pendleton, the extracts from the journals of Dr. John Pierce, and the European letters of Mrs. John Thornton Kirkland. The most interesting articles are those of Pro- fessor Franklin B. Dexter on Abraham Bishop, Professor Dunning's on Andrew Johnson, and Mr. Charles Francis Adams's long review of Mr. Rhodes's fifth volume. Nearly a fifth of the volume is devoted to the commemoration of former members of the Society. One such contribu- tion rises far above the conventional level of such " tributes " and sketches, Mr. John T. Morse's biographical memoir of the late Colonel Henry Lee, a skilled biographer's treatment of an extremely vivacious personality. The above volume inevitably falls into comparison with the eighth volume of the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (Boston, 1906, pp. xix, 465), which covers the transactions of the Society in 1902-1904. The Colonial Society is at a disadvantage in having a more restricted field, being likely to confine itself in the main to the period before the Revolution, while the Massachusetts Historical Society now has or should have its richest field in the period since that event. The younger society has no such store of materials in its own possession to draw upon, nor has it the literary traditions of the elder. It is not yet under the temptation to devote too much space to the commemoration of deceased members. On the whole, the best of the contents of the recent volumes of the Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings is marked by a wider range of historical insight and a weightier exhibit of thought and experience: yet if we speak of the average contents, the volumes of the younger society are more inter- esting and show more energy and a disposition to deal with a greater variety of topics. Both volumes are made up with care, handsomely printed and well indexed. The latest volume of the Colonial Society presents 58 pages of index to 405 of text. Its most important articles are those of Mr. John Noble on the Vice-Admiralty Jurisdiction in the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay and of Mr. Andrew M. Davis on the Confiscation Laws of the revolutionary period. The most interesting documents are letters of James Martineau, James Rus- sell Lowell, and Nathaniel Walker Appleton, the latter exhibiting Cam-