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archery and deeds of valor, drawn from the Robin Hood ballads and legends.

Retainers, lords and ladies, knights, Templars, monks, priests, prisoners, jailors, and men-at-arms are introduced; and the book is full of brilliantly colored pictures of the period which abounds in contrasts between the Saxons and the Normans.

Jews of Angevin England, The, by

Joseph Jacobs. (1893.) A most interesting volume of "Documents and Records from Latin and Hebrew sources, printed and manuscript, for the first time collected and translated," with notes and narrative forming an exhaustive history of the Jews in England, from the Norman Conquest to the year 1206. Mr. Jacobs finds no evidence that the Jews, as a class, were known in England until they were brought in by the Norman kings. It was not until the accession of Henry II., 1154 A. D., that they began to have a specially English history. It is substantially a history of their position as usurers in the service of the Royal Treasury. The whole story of the Jews in England goes on to their expulsion in 1290; and Mr. Jacobs estimates that a score of volumes would be required to complete their history on the scale of the volume which he has executed. It is thus a beginning only which he has made; but it is a very valuable beginning, as it enables him to indicate clearly what were the notable aspects of English Jewish life.

Egypt, A History of. Vol. i., from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Dy

nasty.

Vol. ii., During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth dynasties. By W. M. Flinders Petrie. These volumes are the first of a series of six intended to embrace the whole history of Egypt down to modern times. A third, by Professor Petrie, will complete the period of the Pharaohs. Other writers will add volumes on Ptolemaic Egypt, on Roman Egypt, and on Arabic Egypt; the design of the whole work being to supply a book of reference which shall suffice for all ordinary purposes, but with special attention to facts

nology of the successive dynasties. The figures settled upon by Professor Petrie, in his first volume, show seventeen dynasties ruling from 4777 B. C. to 1587 B. C., and Dynasty XVIII. carrying on the history to 1327 B. C. It is thus the story of 3,450 years which he tells in the two volumes. The history of the seventeenth dynasty (1738-1587 B. C.), and of the eighteenth, told in Vol. ii., are especially important; and for these, no record or monument has been left unnoticed.

Egyptian Princess, An, a German his

torical romance by Georg Ebers, was published in 1864. Its scenes are laid in Egypt and Persia, toward the close of the sixth century B. C. The narrative follows the fates of the royal families of the two nations, tracing the career of the headstrong, passionate Cambyses, from the days of his marriage with the Egyptian princess Nitetis, whom he was deceived into accepting as the daughter of Amasis, King of Egypt, down to the times when, his ill-fated bride taking poison, he himself humbles the arms of Egypt in punishment for their deception; and, dissipated, violent, capricious, the haughty monarch meets his death, Darius the Mede reigning in his stead. A figure of infinite pathos is the gentle Nitetis; with pitiful patience meeting the cruel suspicions of Cambyses, and content to kiss his hand in her death agonies, the result of his intemperate anger.

Another interesting character is Bartja, the handsome and chivalrous younger brother of Cambyses, of whom the King is so unjustly jealous. His love for Sappho, granddaughter of the far-famed Rhodopis, is one of the most genuine conceptions in literature. Several historic characters are introduced and placed in natural settings, notably Croesus, mentor of the unhappy Cambyses; and Darius, whose future greatness is foreshadowed in an early youth of discretion and prowess. The author has drawn a faithful picture of the times, having made a profound study of his sources. The dialogue is sparkling, and the characters are handled with precision and delicacy.

the utmost care to throw as much light as possible upon Egyptian dates. There is no intention of including a history of art, civilization, or literature; the one purpose of the work is to get into as accurate shape as possible the history and chro

ventures on the Euphrates. The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia, in the Years 1888-90. By John Punnett Peters. Vol. i.: First Campaign. Vol. ii.: Second Campaign (1897.) The latest

and most remarkable story of Babylonjan exploration and discovery, carrying back to a most unexpectedly early date the distinct records of human history and of developed culture. In the lower valley of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, both civilization and religion, literature and science, had four conspicuous seats in cities which flourished not less than eight thousand years ago. They were Eridu, the most southerly and westerly, the seat of the worship of Ea, a god of Beneficence, and of Merodach his son, especially known as a god of Mercy; Ur, the seat of the worship of the moongod, Sin, one of whose seats was Sinai, and especially a god of goodness, the moon-deity being regarded as the FatherGod, to whom the sun is a son and the evening star a daughter; Erech, farther north, the seat of the worship of Ishtar, the evening and the morning star, conceived as the equal of her brother, the sun, and the magnificent ideal of female character at the highest level of divinity; and Nippur, the most northerly and easterly, and the seat of the worship of Bel, or the sun,-conceived, not as son to the moon-god, but as a supreme god, represented by the setting sun, and most especially revealed in the flaming redness of his setting in times of excessive heat and drought; the Angry En-Lil, or "Lord of the Storm," who caused all the weather troubles of mankind,-desolating winds, violent storms, floods, drought, and all injuries. It was by him that the Deluge was brought, and for it the good Ea, and kindly Sin, and Merodach the Merciful, charged him with cruel injustice; and the Babylonian Noah, making a sacrifice after the flood, invited all the gods except En-Lil. As god of the red sunset the nether-world was his, ruled by a son who was of like cruel temper with his father.

Nippur is thus the original seat of the conception of a god of anger and a religion of fear. It was a great and flourishing city as long before Abraham as Abraham is before our day. Its temple, commonly known as the House of EnLil, Dr. Peters says, (just as the temple at Jerusalem was called the House of Yahweh,) had stood for about five thousand years, when it fell into ruins about or before 150 B. C. Dr. Peters speaks of "the close connection existing between Babylonian and Hebrew civilization, legends, myths, and religion." He states

21

also that "the new vistas of ancient history opened by the work recently done in Babylonia have shown us men in a high state of civilization, building cities, conducting conquest, and trafficking with remote lands, two thousand years before the period assigned by Archbishop Ussher's chronology for the creation of the world." The culture was Babylonian, and Nippur was its darkest devel· opment.

Babylonian Influence on the Bible

and Popular Beliefs; by A. Smythe Palmer, D. D. (1897.) A small volume specially devoted to showing how the Hebrew Mosaic books evince "familiarity with the great religious epics of Babylonia, which go back to the twenty-third century B. C.,-to a date, that is, about 800 years earlier than the reputed time of Moses"; and how, in consequence of this familiarity, "Babylonian ideas were worked into these early Hebrew documents, and were thus insured persistence and obtained a world-wide currency." That "Babylon still survives in our culture," is Dr. Palmer's general conclusion. He especially devotes his work to showing how the Babylonian conception of Tiamat was reproduced in the Hebrew conception of Tehom, "the Deep"; how the Babylonian idea of the Deep, suggesting the Dragon of the Deep, gave the Hebrew mind its idea of Satan; and how again the idea of the Deep became, first to the Babylonians, and then to the Hebrews, the idea of a Hades, or Tartaros, or Hell. Dr. Palmer makes prominent these points: (1) that "the Hebrew record of the creation is based on the more ancient accounts which have been preserved in the Babylonian tablets"; (2) that "religious conceptions of the Babylonians, suggested by phenomenal aspects of nature, especially the Sun, lay at the base of the Hebrews' early faith"; (3) that "the Great Deep was constituted a symbol of lawlessness,» personified as a dragon or great serpent," and "became a symbol of moral evil"; (4) that "among the Hebrews this serpent or dragon introduces sin"; and (5) that "this Chaos-Dragon contributed shape to later conceptions of the Devil." He further says, with reference to "the mediatorial god, Merodach» of Babylonian belief: "It has often been remarked that Merodach, as mediator, healer, and redeemer, as forgiving sin,

was

return to Jerusalem under Ezra; and it was brought to a final result by Rabbi Jehudah Hannasi, about 160 A. D. After the conclusion of the Mishna, there grew up two bodies of further explanation, called Gemara, one at Babylon and the other in Palestine. The Mishna thus came to exist in three greatly differing forms: Mishna by itself, and Mishna as embodied with Gemara in the Talmud of Babylon or that of Palestine. Dr. Rodkinson deals with the Babylonian form of Mishna and Gemara.

Indian Bible, The, by John Eliot, "The

Apostle to the North-American Indians." This first Indian translation of the Bible was in the dialect of the Naticks, a Massachusetts tribe of the Algonkins, and was made under the auspices of the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospels among the Indians of New England, Eliot sending the sheets to England for approval as they came from the printing-press in Cambridge, Massachu

setts.

The New Testament appeared first, in 1661; and two years after, the entire Bible, with the following title:

MAMUSSE

WUNNEETUPANATAMWE

UP-BIBLUM GOD

NANEESIVE

NUKKONE TESTAMENT

KAH WONK

WUSKU TESTAMENT

NE QUOSHKINNUMUK NASHPE

WUTTINNENMOK CHRIST
JOHN ELIOT

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTENOOP NASHPE

SAMUEL GREEN KAH MARMADUK JOHNSON 1663

Consent of the Corporation in England for the Propagation of the Gospels among the Indians of New England.»

Some of the Indian words used by Eliot are so extremely long that Cotton Mather thought they must have been stretching themselves ever since the confusion of tongues at Babel. A second revised and corrected edition was printed in 1685, only twelve copies of which are known to exist. An edition with notes by P. S. Du Poneau, and an introduction by J. Pickering, was published in Boston in 1822. When the original edition was issued, twenty copies were ordered to be sent to the Corporation, with the Epistle Dedicatory addressed"To the High and Mighty Prince Charles the Second by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. The Commissioners of the United Colonies in New England with all Happiness: Most Dread Sovereign, etc.!»

The commercial as well as the religious rivalry of England with Spain creeps out in the Epistle which compares the fruits of the Spanish Conquests in America, brought home in gold and silver, with "these fruits of the colder northern clime as much better than gold as the souls of men are more worth than the whole world!»

Henry the Seventh's failure to become the sole discoverer and owner of America finds its compensation in "the discovery unto the poor Americans of the True and Saving knowledge of the Gospel,» and "the honour of erecting the Kingdom of Jesus Christ among them was reserved for and does redound unto Your Majesty and the English Nation. After ages will not reckon this inferior to the other - May this nursling still suck the breast of Kings and be fostered by Your Majesty! »

A copy of the edition of 1663, with the Epistle Dedicatory, was sold in 1882 for $2,900.

duke Johnson 1663.»

The English title also adds: «Translated into the Indian Language and Ordered to be printed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in New England at the Charge and with the

entral America, Incidents of Travel in (and in Chiapas and Yucatan). By John Lloyd Stephens. (2 vols., 1841.) The story of a journey of nearly 3,000 miles, including visits to eight ruined cities, monuments of a marvelously interesting lost civilization; that of the Maya land, the many cities of which, of great size, splendor, and culture, rivaled those of the Incas and the Montezumas.

Ten editions of this book were published within three months. Two years later, Mr. Stephens supplemented this first adequate report of the character of Central American antiquities by a second work, his Travel in Yucatan,' in which he reported further explorations extended to forty-four ruined cities. At an earlier date he had published Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land' (2 vols., 1837), and Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland (2 vols., 1841).

the lives of those who have made use of them; the writers who are authorities upon the several subjects; societies interested in them; and critical statements of existing knowledge and the conditions bearing upon future study. The work is chiefly designed for, and chiefly useful to, writers rather than readers of history: to each of the former it may save months or perhaps years of search for materials, and the constant duplication of such researches already made. It is in fact a co-operative bureau of first-hand sources. It begins with the earliest facts known

Squier. Notes On: 1854. The States of: 1857. Two works by an American archæologist of distinction, who, after a special experience in similar researches in New York, Ohio, and other States, entered on a wide and protracted research in Central America in 1849; published a work on Nicaragua in 1852; and later gave, in the two works named above, a report of observations on both the antiquities and the political condition of Central America, the value of which has been widely recognized. The Serpent Symbols (1852) of Mr. Squier attracted attention as a study of great value in the baffling science of primitive religion and speculation on nature; and his Peru: Incidents and Explorations in the Land of the Incas (1877), was the result of exhaustive investigations of Inca remains, and a most valuable contribution to knowledge of ancient Peru.

America, The Narrative and Critical

History of, edited by Justin Winsor. This history was prepared upon a cooperative plan (which the editor had previously adopted for his 'Memorial History of Boston'), of dividing historical work into topical sections, and assigning these divisions to different writers, each eminent in his own department, all of whom worked synchronously, thus bringing the whole work to rapid and accurate completion. Each chapter has two parts: first a Historical Narrative which groups the salient points of the story, and bodies the result of the latest researches; second, a Critical Essay by the editor, which, with the appended notes on specific points, is a new procedure in historical methods. In these critical essays are set forth the original sources of the preceding narrative,—- manuscripts, monuments, archæological remains, -with full accounts of their various histories and locations;

em

riginal inhabitants, including a discussion of the pre-Columbian voyages; describes the different discoveries and settlements by European nations,- Spanish, English, French, and Dutch; and the rise and history of the United States, down to the close of the Mexican war and the end of the year 1850. For the rest of the continent the history is continued down to about 1867. The authors engaged in this work are distinguished each in his own field of study, and much valuable material of an archæological and genealogical character was furnished to them by the leading learned and historical societies. In bibliography there is, along with other important matter, a careful collation of the famous "Jesuit Relations"; and in cartography-a subject of which Mr. Winsor had long made a special study — the work is noticeably strong. The publication extended over the years 1884-89.

America. Periods in the Modern His

tory of, by John Fiske.

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 2 vols., 1892. The initial work of Mr. Fiske, designed to serve as the first section of a complete History of America. It very fully and carefully covers the ground of aboriginal America in the light of recent research; and of the long and slow process through which the New World became fully known to the Old. The story of voyages before Columbus by the Portuguese, and of what Cabot accomplished, is given at length; the part also which Vespucius played, and the questions about it which have been so much discussed. Mr. Fiske's estimate of Columbus does not depart very much from the popular view. He gives an account of ancient Mexico and Central America, and a full sketch of the conquest of Mexico and Peru. The work thus makes a complete Introduction