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1921 SHORT NOTICES 153 The seventh volume of M. Auguste Gauvain's L 'Europe au Jour le Jour 1 (Paris: Bossard, 1920) contains his leading articles between June 1914 and February 1915. In these his reputation for foresight is well maintained. As early as 5 August 1914 he stated that Bulgarian com- plicity with Austria was ' morally certain '. On 26 August he ventured to describe the war as ' long and terrible '. He pressed for immediate action against Turkey, and regarded British reluctance to national service as a transitory if inevitable prejudice. These were real services to France. The articles, however, are far too much ' au jour le jour ' to be held either literature or history. G. B. H. In the 220 pages of his Histoire de VEmpire Byzantin (Paris : Picard, 1919) Professor Diehl has given us an outline of Byzantine history from 330 to the capitulation of Trebizond in 1461. He has proceeded by selection and not by compression, recognizing that in such a task success is not gained by forcing into a small compass as many facts as would properly find their place in a history written on a larger scale. The result is a useful and readable book, in which the writer has some room to escape from the mass of details, and to dwell upon the more general aspects of his subject, whilst the reader hardly feels the severe economy of space. By a division of the material into broad periods the awkwardness of perpetual change of subject has been as far as possible avoided. An appendix contains a list of emperors, a chronological table, and a short bibliography. There are fifteen plates taken from the author's Manuel d? Art Byzantin, a plan of Constantinople, and four maps. R. M. D. Although his own special studies belong to early periods of our history, M. Henri Prentout has undertaken with success a general Histoire de VAngleterre (Paris : Hachette, 1920). He treats the whole story from prehistoric times to the general election of 1918 with accuracy and pro- portion. A few small mistakes, for instance in the spelling of names, are inevitable, and occasionally British events are shown in a foreign dress, but, except for the most recent period, where, perhaps unconsciously, he becomes something of a partisan, the author has produced a trustworthy and useful handbook. B. Two articles of special interest to historical students appear in the Law Quarterly Review for July 1920 (vol. xxxvi, no. 143). In his paper on the rise of the order of king's counsel Dr. W. S. Holdsworth supplements his study, published in the Wigmore Celebration Essays (Chicago, 1919), upon the law officers of the Crown. He shows how the learned counsel retained by the Crown in Elizabeth's reign developed into a body of privileged persons who affected the ordering of the whole legal profession, the precedence of barristers, the position of the Serjeants, and the govern- ment of the Inns of Court. Dr. Percy H. Winfield's essay on the early history of criminal conspiracy helps to reveal one of the darkest sides of medieval administration, namely, the ease with which, owing to lack of 1 See ante, xxxiii. 427 and xxxiv. 126.