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in which the story of this little realm is told in detail from the sixth century to the last of the Balkan Wars, is therefore sure of a sympathetic reading from a public keenly alive to every issue raised by the conflict with Germany. He was originally led to the subject by his studies in the diplomatic history of the eigh- teenth and nineteenth centuries, but the scope of the work gradually widened, until it became a complete history of Serbia, based, as the preface tells us, upon some years of travel and study in the Near East." Incidentally, the romantic story of Montenegro, the grey mountain stronghold, where, according to the old ballad, God threw a shower of granite from heaven," is unfolded also and the secret of its baffling resistance to the Ottoman power is made plain. The nineteenth century, the era of Serbian national development, when the country was dis- tracted by the internal strife of rival dynasties and the external intrigues of Austria and Russia, and yet made solid progress towards nationhood, takes up a good half of the book, but the middle ages are not neglected and space is left for the premature blossoming of Serbian greatness in the fourteenth century, nipped in its prime on the fatal field of Kossovo. At all points the narrative as we should expect from a practised historian, is firmly articulated into the general European environments, for no story would less bear telling in isolation their marked indi- viduality has secured the Serbs from absorption by their neigh- bour races, but it has been a standing challenge through the ages to Turk, Magyar, Bulgar and Teuton. "If ever there is a Southern Slav Federation," says the author, it will be because of the Kingdom of Serbia." The study of the history of this Kingdom should, therefore, furnish the best introduction to that difficult Jugo-Slav question, which is already engaging the attention of publicists and which will assuredly be one of the main problems calling for a settlement at the end of the War. In this connection it is not encourag- ing to be told (p. 17) that, of the Southern Slav peoples, the Croats alone have persistently shown political gifts of a higher order." But the Welshman is used to hearing of the want of political capacity among people who have had no real scope for the display of the gift. He will often be reminded, in reading these pages, of the conditions of mediaeval Wales. Their methods were those of guerilla warfare and, as the small tribes could not be got to act together, they seldom attempted siege operations or extended campaigns. As irregulars they were extraordinarily effective, for they were experts in all the arts of savage warfare (p. 11). "It was their delight to lure enemies into the dark recesses of woods or narrow defiles, or to lie in wait hidden by reeds for foes who trod the dangerous paths across the marshes (ibid.) No mediaeval King ever ruled over all the Jugo-Slavs. Until the Ottoman oppression welded the fragments into one, Serb unity was of a racial, not of a national type (p. 92). All the elements of national life existed, oppres- sion was needed to cause them to unite (p. 168). Nothing could be more familiar to the student of the history of Wales. In both cases, there was the survival of a primitive tribal civilisation, a love of independence in matters ecclesiastical as well as secular, and a wild and difficult country which nurtured and defended valour. Welshmen are sure to find a fascination in the story of a people whose fortunes so vividly recall their own. E. Lloyd. Italy: Mediaeval and Modern. A History by E. M. Jamison, C. M. Ady, K.D. Vernon and C. Sanford Terry. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1917. Pp. vi. 564. 6s. 6d. net. This volume may fairly lay claim to the crowning virtue of the text-book kind. It meets a long-felt want," and does it uncommonly well. Readers of our many fascinating studies in Italian history must often have wished for some brief but reasonably comprehensive review of the history of mediaeval and modem 'Italy which would enable them to fit the subject of their immediate interest into the general scheme of things. For this reason this undertaking is warmly to be commended. We should say also that it has been written with the sort of vivid- ness which would induce readers to take up the closer study of particular periods and persons. Sober, as it ought to be, and interested in the development of all sides of the amazingly rich life of Italy, it has an eye for the dramatic quality of most of her political crises and of the leaders which these called forth. In the space of 500 pages, the authors traverse the whole his- tory of Italy from her place in the imperial system of Rome to that memorable day just over two years ago when Italy entered on her fourth War of Independence against Austria. The volume is divided into four sections the first covering the period up to 1250, the others successively dealing with Renaissance Italy, the long period of foreign domination, and the entrancing story of the Risorgiments and the winning of national unity. The last section, naturally the most attractive, is a particularly brilliant piece of work. The authors, fortunately, do not think it their business to write a war-time panegyric. There are seamy things in recent Italian politics as in the politics of other Powers. But Italy has perhaps a better case than most in that often enough she was more sinned against than sinning. As has been said, the book is well written. Its one defect- an occasional descent to the catalogue style-is inevitable in a book which has to cover so much ground. The maps and tables are helpful; and there is an excellent bibliography. "The Man who Saw," and other Poems arising out of the War, by William Watson, (London: John Murray. 1917. Pp. ixx. 96. 3s. 6d. nett.) This volume should not have been published. Only a deep admiration for Mr. Watson's past work, and sympathy with the ardour which has induced him to compose the present verses, prevent me from speaking of this collection with the rigour which it deserves, despite some touches of poetry in The Man who Saw, the first piece in the book, a panegyric on Mr. Lloyd George. As Mr. Watson is not only a fine poet but a theorist about his art, one is in a doubly strange position if one essays to lecture him on the nature of poetry. But he should have remem- bered, when writing of the German Emperor and of the British forces, that mere abuse and mere praise-however well merited- cannot make literature. I must 'be excused from quoting passages to maintain the point I cannot bear to hold Mr. Wat- son up to even momentary discredit. His reputation stands, and will stand, upon splendid work like Lacrimae Musarum, the Hymn to the Sea, and scores of finely-wrought short poems, when the present deplorable publication is forgotten. Gilbert Norwood. "Is there a Poetic View of the World"? By C. H. Herford, Litt.D. Professor Herford's answer to his own question is that the poet usually works upon views of the world which are either religious or philosophical, but in working upon them usually modifies them. He shows how Homer, Aeschylus, and Dante not merely adopted, but in a manner remade the religious views upon which they worked; and how Lucretius, Words- worth, Goethe, and others, dealt in similar fashion with the philosophical conceptions of their time. He shows finally how