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306 SHORT NOTICES . April such as Lunzi's valuable treatise upon the Ionian Islands during the Venetian occupation, were inaccessible to the writer, who is apparently unacquainted with Professor Andreades' book upon their economic administration during the same period, and whose researches in Italian libraries were inevitably hindered by the war. The dates of the Lombard kingdom of Salonika and of the Crispi dukes of Naxos require revision by the light of published discoveries, and here and there the spelling of proper names, e.g. ' delta Koche ', is inaccurate. The most interesting part of the book is that which describes Venetian society ; but we could wish that Mr. Horatio Brown, who possesses an unrivalled knowledge of the Venetian archives and has lived the life of the lagoons for a whole genera- tion, could be persuaded to write that final history of Venice, political and social, of which his historical sketch and his translation of Molmenti gave us a foretaste. W. M. The short monograph of Mr. H. S. V. Jones entitled Spenser's Defense of Lord Grey (University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, vol. v, no. 3. Urbana, 1919) will chiefly interest students of literature. Though adding nothing to our knowledge of Lord Grey's administra- tion in Ireland, or of the poet's political activities, it examines at some length the influence of the French politiques, and above all of Jean Bodin, upon the political thought of Spenser as revealed in his View of the State of Ireland and Book v of the Faerie Queene. The author disclaims any intention of entering into the political controversy as to the rights or wrongs of the lord deputy's policy, yet his bias appears in his assumption (p. 10) that Spenser understood the significance of the situation in Ireland, which is at least a disputable point. He prefers to discuss the issue on ethical rather than on historical grounds, asserting that the fundamental question raised concerns the relation in the abstract between justice and tolerance, since Spenser undertook to defend his patron from the suspicion of intolerant protestantism. This leads him to an examination of contemporary speculation on the subject of tolera- tion in England and France, which forms the main body of his work. Spenser's political views and his interpretation of Grey's character are considered to be derived in the main from the Republique of Bodin, many apposite parallel passages being quoted as evidence. Moreover, Spenser's historical method is similar to that outlined in the Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem. This is all worth pointing out, but Mr. Jones is on less secure ground when he asserts that ' Spenser and Bodin also agree . . . that the sovereignty of the Prince rests upon a contract of permanent validity '. In the passage cited from the View, by which Mr. Jones supports this contention, Spenser seems to use the term ' sovereynty ' without any strictly philosophic meaning. The disserta- tion concludes with a detailed criticism of the theory that Spenser's defence of Lord Grey relies primarily on the political principles of Machia- velli's Prince. The essential weakness of the essay is its lack of a proper historical background. The author's main authority for Tudor history appears to be Mr. A. D. Innes's England under the Tudors (which is quoted rather freely in several foot-notes), supported by casual references to the Cambridge Modern History and the Domestic and Irish Calendars. F. J. R.