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126 Rcviczos of Books he deals chief!)' with military history. He excels Longman and War- burton in accuracy of statement, corrects chronological errors Of various writers, and treats certain periods of Scottish history with a fulness of detail never before attempted. His account of the battle of Neville's Cross is based partly upon a source heretofore used by no English writer, and the narrative of events in Scotland for the decade after Halidon Hill deserves especial mention for its novelty. Such are the chief merits of the volume. They are due, in part, to priority in the use of Letten- hove's Froissart. Apparently Dr. Mackinnon has not employed all available contem- porary materials. Certain minor chroniclers are not cited, and no evi- dence exists that the author has consulted the important Calendars of Close and Patent Rolls. A specific bibliography is lacking. The opening sentence of the preface states : "In writing this work I have limited myself to the investigation of contemporary evidence." It is a pity the assertion is so true. How much the author could have learned from recent writers is evidenced, for example, by his description of the battle of Dupplin Moor. He ascribes the victory of the English to the "courage of despair " and "the idiocy of Mar and his ill-disci- plined rabble;" of the significance of English archery tactics, he has never a word to say. Again, with reference to the battle of Poitiers, he names with evident pride the authorities by whose use he has "departed considerably from the conventional descriptions of previous historians." He does not seem to know that by the ' ' careful examination ' ' of these same authorities Mr. Oman had already written an account of the battle better, because more critical and less dogmatic, than his own. The favorable reception accorded Dr. Mackinnon' s work on the Union of England and Scotland cz.Vi.i'i.x&y )t ^:iX&AtA in its fulness to the present publication. Apart from Scottish annals, it contains too little which is new. Much of the military history, and all the constitu- tional history, has been handled as well or better elsewhere ; the re- ligious and economic features of the reign are portrayed essentially along familiar lines ; and the character of Edward himself, as man and sov- ereign, stands out but little more clearly as the result of Dr. Mackinnon's analysis. Regarding the warriors of the time as ' ' picturesque fighting maniacs, ' ' he abhors chivalry. This sharp contrast between the spirit of the author and one prominent manifestation of the spirit of the age apparently leads him to adopt a style of cheap sarcasm and railing mockery which too often falls below the standard of historical dignity and defaces with vul- garisms page after page of his work. The infiltration of modern human- itarian ideals and the use of the nineteenth-century interpretation of the rights of nationalities as a test for the acts of the fourteenth, detract greatly from the value of the book. Oliver H. Richardson.