Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/317

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1922 SHORT NOTICES 309 the attack upon him into very serious consideration. Dr v van der Kenip is evidently thoroughly well acquainted with his archives, and prides himself on his accuracy in detail, devoting a section of the introduction to an attack on Dr. Colenbrander for what he designates as the ' scandalous ' inaccuracy of his edition of Falck's Gedenkschriften. 1 Unfortunately Dr. van der Kemp's own erudition is greater than his judgement. It is questionable whether, looking to all the circumstances of the time, his rough handling of the Netherlands authorities is really justified he at least shows little sympathy with them and the attack on Raffles, which appears to be the main purpose of the book, overshoots the mark by its own vehemence. Strong epithets and a profusion of marks of exclamation add nothing to the strength of a case, while remarks such as that on p. 114, that Salmond wrote ' with the usual British humbug ', weaken it, since they seem to betray bias and there are a number of other remarks of the same kind. The views of the author, or of anybody else, on English folly or iniquity in regard to the South African War, the Kaiser, or the German colonies (pp. 171, 178, 249) at best are irrelevant, and at worst leave the reader wondering whether this is a book of sober history or a ponderous party pamphlet. H. L. There is something pathetic about the life of the scholar-nobleman, John Patrick, Third Marquess of Bute (London : Murray, 1921), by his old friend Abbot Hunter Blair. His wealth , his family, his double connexion with Scotland and South Wales, combined with his unselfishness and strong sense of duty, all seemed to point to a life of great public utility. As a public man Lord Bute did all that his position required of him, yet his was such a fine mind, such a serious character, with so little time wasted in trivialities, that one cannot but feel that he might have done much more. His heart, however, was more in his historical and liturgical studies and in his architectural restorations than in his public activities. At Christ Church he was more interested in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon than in the success of his horse in a ' grind ', and later on his translation of the Roman Breviary was, as he said, his ' beloved child '. Fortunately he found in his work for St. Andrews University a thoroughly congenial task, appealing both to his munificence and to his love of ancient institu- tions. His lord -rectorship of St. Andrews was the climax of his life. N. Dr. T. M. Marshall has edited, in the University of Colorado Historical Collection, the Early Records of Gilpin County, 1859-61 (1920). Ten years after the California gold-rush came a flood of prospectors to Colorado, some 100,000 in all. In this volume we have records of the organization of nineteen self-governing ' districts ' in the new gold area. Most of them adopted the Kansas code of laws, but they supplemented these by mining legislation. Their ' laws ' were made in mass meeting, following New England precedent ; juries were set up, of three, seven, or twelve members ; the suffrage was arranged, in one case being given to all those sixteen years old. Several districts tried to enforce prohibition, and Nevada resolved 1 See ante, xxx. 357.