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542 Rcvieivs of Books est of much of this information about books. It is true that the judg- ment of the maker of the bibliography will not always be correct, that his estimates will not always be accepted, — and indeed we should be in- clined to dispute more than one of Dr. Gross's dicta ; but such short- comings or differences of opinion are as nothing compared with the great value given to the entries by this additional information and by the statements, criticisms, and "appreciation," prefixed to each section. The work is divided into four parts, the first, including about one quarter of the book, being devoted to "general authorities," the other three, to the period of origins, the Anglo-Saxon period, and that between 1066 and 1485, respectively. England, Wales and Ireland are dealt with, but Scotland is not, or at least is only included occasionally, as are several other countries, when their affairs are influential on English history. The first part is necessarily somewhat incoherent, involving lists and de- scriptions of bibliographical works, journals, works on the sciences aux- iliary to history, the archives, collections of sources printed by public and private bodies and by individuals, and secondary works on a great variety of historical subjects which do not fall properly in the later chronological treatment. Perhaps the most noticeable feature about this section is its catholicity. The author, as might be expected from his earlier work, does not hesitate to include much institutional, antiquarian, and almost technical matter that frequently receives but scant recognition or atten- tion from the historical student. Particularly is this true of his sections on local history and on commerce, industry, and agriculture. Part II. is necessarily short, though it contains more material of controversy than all the history of England since. In Part III. Dr. Gross's account of con- temporary writings and legal collections, with their literature and the varying views held or conclusions reached upon them by modern scholars, takes up much more space than the list of independent works of modern scholars. Indeed, a single item like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or Nennius is the occasion for a long paragraph of references to editions and translations, for a list of half a dozen or more writers on the subject, and a paragraph summing up conclusions. A full half of the book remains to Part IV. , the period from the Nor- man Conquest to 1485, and here again much more than half the space, some 225 pages, is required to describe the original sources. The description of the chronicles and the main bodies of documents, classified under various subdivisions of place and subject, is given with a fullness and continuity quite unknown elsewhere. The wealth of chron- icles which we possess for this period, especially for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, comes out clearly, especially so in the convenient list of contemporary chroniclers by reigns which Dr. Gross has drawn up. And yet the description of the more varied contemporary source-material is vastly more impressive. In official records of Parliament, of the var- ious law-courts, of government offices, in taxation-rolls, city, manorial, episcopal and monastic records, wills, correspondence, poetry, and in still other forms, we have the raw material from which a true knowledge