A History of Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty. By J. P. Mahaffy. 8°, pp. xiii + 261; A History of Egypt under Roman Rule. By J. Grafton Milne, pp. xiii + 262. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1898-1899. The first of these volumes is the fourth in a series of six which are to comprise a complete history of Egypt from the first dynasty through the period of Arabic rule. The first three volumes have been prepared by Mr. W. F. M. Petrie, who has generously assisted also in the preparation and illustration of this volume. The text is, in the main, a recasting of that of Professor Mahaffy's "Empire of the Ptolemies" (London, Macmillan, 1895). The arrangement of chapters differs somewhat, and the new material which has come to hand during the intervening four years has been conscientiously incorporated. The earlier and much larger volume had few illustrations, and those confined to Ptolemaic cartouches and coins. The present volume has no less than seventy-nine excellent illustrations, including notable monuments of all kinds, as well as a much fuller array of cartouches and coins. Each chapter is also headed with a helpful list of authorities, ancient and modern. The book gains distinctly over the earlier work from the condensation practiced in it, and the author's touch is often surer, even in dubious questions, than it was before. It is a welcome and exceedingly satisfactory manual for the period which it covers, from the hand of a scholar who is making the field here represented more and more securely his own. The problems confronting a historian of the period covered by Mr. Milne's volume are more perplexing, perhaps, and the results of the most assiduous collation of the all too scanty material, outside of papyri and monuments, more meager than for any period of Egyptian history since the seventh century B. C. "The story of Egypt during the centuries of Roman rule is not, and probably never can be, anything like a connected narrative. For the most part, events in Egypt were too monotonously uninteresting for the historians of the Roman Empire to pay any attention to them." It is for just this reason that the service rendered by this little volume is out of all proportion to its size and to the length of its often fragmentary chapters. An idea of the sources of information laid under contribution may be had from the list of authorities for the bare page of text on Egypt under Tiberius. They are (p. 24): Buildings, Inscriptions, Ostraka, Papyri, and Miscellaneous Monuments. The masses of still unedited papyri make it reasonable to hope that many of the tantalizing meager chapters of this work may sometime be enriched with new material. At present the editor has often been called upon to make bricks without straw. It is only fair to say that he has always resisted the temptation to say something, when there was absolutely nothing to say, with rare selfcontrol. The indebtedness of this volume to Mr. Petrie is even greater than that of the fourth volume. This also, but with almost double generosity, contains illustrations which are varied, clear, and pertinently helpful. The list of half-tones and wood-cuts numbers one hundred and forty-three. Both volumes have interesting and valuable appendices, both good indices, and Vol. IV, a copy, by permission, of Botti's new map of ancient Alexandria. Both volumes are good evidence of the satisfactory way in which English scholars are improving the opportunities afforded them by the English occupation of Egypt. Yale University. B. PERRIN. The Philadelphia Negro. A Social Study. By W. E. Burghardt The first of these works is not merely a credit to its author and to the race of which he is a member; it is a credit to American scholarship, and a distinct and valuable addition to the world's stock of knowledge concerning an important and obscure theme. It is the sort of book of which we have too few, and of which it is impossible that one should have too many. That the "negro problem" is among the gravest and most involved, and difficult, of American life, is increasingly obvious; it ought by this time to be equally obvious that we can derive no considerable help toward its solution from the sentimental or prejudiced writings which abound, both north and south, on the subject. Here is an inquiry, covering a specific field and a considerable period of time, and prosecuted with candor, thoroughness, and critical judgment, its results being interpreted with intelligence and sympathy. We have no space to report or discuss the contents of the work, but we have long held that it is in monographs like this that we shall be likely to find the most trustworthy help in solving our great racial problem. If a similar study could be made in a score of cities, in various parts of the country, and in particular rural districts of the south, a basis of accurate and detailed knowledge concerning the condition of the race would be laid, on which conclusions could safely be founded. Mr. Washington's work is not that of a scholar, but of a shrewd, sane and tactful leader of the people and administrator of affairs. He knows both races, and both sections of the country, and seeks to be a mediator between extreme opinions and programs. His book is a contribution, not to knowledge, but to that good temper and good sense which is perhaps of equal importance. W. F. B. By Gustav Cohn. Zur Geschichte und Politik des Verkehrwesens. Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke, 1900. Octavo, 524 pp. Those who have followed the recent writings of Gustav Cohn in various economic periodicals, know how original and suggestive is his treatment of every subject which he touches. In the volume before us he has collected a number of these papers to serve, as he modestly says in his preface, as a sort of appendix to the third volume of his "System of Political Economy." Of the nine essays contained in the book, seven deal with problems of transportation. These constitute the really solid and valuable part of the work. Whether in dealing with the policy of the English government or with the conditions governing competition between railroads and water routes, Cohn stands unrivalled in the range of his information and the keen insight of his mind. Less profound perhaps, but more popular, and very useful in its present day suggestions, is his article on pools. He shows here in even greater relief than he has shown elsewhere, the similarity of the evils now complained of to those which have existed in past decades and even in past centuries. The only article whose inclusion we really regret is that which deals with the theory of political economy in England and America at the present day. Not that this shows any want of appreciation of what is here being done-quite the contrary; but that in this so rapidly moving world of literature, an article which is timely and well proportioned at one moment becomes antiquated or imperfect very soon afterward. It is for the reader of the day, who reads magazines, rather than for that more permanent audience which reads books. A. T. H. The Life and Campaigns of Alexander Leslie, First Earl of Leven. By Charles Sanford Terry, M.A., University Lecturer in History in the University of Aberdeen. London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899—pp. 518. This work is essentially a military history, not a biography as its title would indicate. The authentic memorials of Leven's career are too meager and too prosaic to admit of a character study. This fact Mr. Terry realizes, and states that his aim was "less to offer a study of individual character than to illustrate that phase in the relations between England and Scotland which Leslie's career represents." Had the biographical element been omitted, Leven would still be without a biography, but a work of considerable value would not have been marred by lack of unity of presentation, nor by the unnecessary obtrusion of an impersonal actor into the foreground. Notwithstanding, as a military history Mr. Terry's book is a success. It fills the gap left in Scottish annals by the absence of a specific account of the part played in the great civil war in England by the Army of the Covenant from its entrance in 1644 to its memorable surrender of Charles I. to the Commissioners of the English Parliament at Newcastle. Especially noteworthy are the chapters on Marston Moor, and the King and the Scottish army. In appendices are printed contemporary narratives of Newburn fight (1640), of Marston Moor, and of the Dunbar campaign. Some of these have never before been published, others have never appeared in a place so accessible or a grouping so convenient. Especially to be mentioned are the numerous documents printed from the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum-among them Simeon Ash's "Continuation of True Intelligence”—and the "Diary of Mr. Robert Douglas," Leven's chaplain, an authority not heretofore used and not mentioned in Mr. C. H. Firth's masterly paper on the battle of Marston Moor published in the twelfth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. Mr. Terry's style is clear and pleasant, the work of the printer leaves nothing to be desired, the index is full and accurate, and the use of the book is facilitated by a number of valuable maps. Yale University. O. H. RICHARDSON. RECENT LITERATURE. The County Palatine of Durham: A Study in Constitutional History; by Gaillard Thomas Lapsley, Ph.D., (Longmans, Green & Co., New York), like most of its predecessors in the Harvard Historical series, seems to have had its inception in a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and partakes in consequence largely of the characteristics of that class of work. It is not, of course, in any sense a history of Durham and lacks, unfortunately, any historical sketch of the county to which the reader who has not the history of Durham at his finger ends might refer to lighten his way through the more or less obscure paths of legal and constitutional detail with which the volume is chiefly concerned. Though too highly technical for any but a student of medieval law and constitution to read with pleasure or even profit, it is a very useful contribution toward lightening the slowly disappearing obscurity of those subjects. It traces out with careful and painstaking minuteness the constitutional, legal and administrative status and organization of the county, and of its officials, chiefly in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, forming an excellent comparative and critical presentment of a mediæval franchise, and throwing much light on the organization and administration of such a district as well as its relations to the central government, which in the case of England at least has not been done before. The work is a variation on two themes, the mediæval dicta, first, that the Bishop of Durham was as king within the County Palatine; and second, that the Bishop of Durham had a two-fold status, that of bishop with respect to spiritual concerns, and that of count palatine with respect to temporalities. To define and illustrate these dicta and the resulting position of Durham jurisdiction and administration, Mr. Lapsley adduces some three hundred and fifty pages of historical illustration, legal precedent and procedure, chiefly covering the period between the reign of Henry II and the sixteenth century, with excursions from time to time on the one side or the other of those dates. Durham, in the author's words, was chosen as a subject of the study, first, because it best represents the palatine jurisdiction (shown also in Chester and Lancashire) most nearly corresponding to the great fiefs of medieval France, and as such "constitutes a striking exception to all generaliza |