REVIEWS OF BOOKS 887 however, by the way. In matters genealogical, which necessarily form the staple of his annotations, Mr. Yorke is remarkably well seen. Why, however, should the grand-duke of Hesse (Lewis II) be called ' the great duke,' a description which would have better suited his father ? The celebrated Count Munster, a statesman of European reputation, is hardly identified sufficiently as ' the Hanoverian minister' (p. 286), and the note on Hildesheim on the same page needs revision.

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... uch is not the case with the princess's own statement on the preceding page, that ' milling of the lower class at Homburg ' have died during the year. ' It is very melancholy to think of,' and an illustration of the fact that old ladies at times write like young. To return for a moment to the Hesse-Homburg family. By a strange fete, the husband of the good Princess Elizabeth, after he had reigned in his castle ' before the height' for a period of nine years, was succeeded by his next brother Lewis ; he in bis turn by his younger brother Philip; Philip by Gustavus ; and Oustavus by Ferdinand, without a son being born to any one of the five soldier brothers except the hut. But he died, only a few months before his father's accession as a student at Bonn; and the last of the Hesse-Homburg landgraves lived through his long reign (1848-66) in solitude, and latterly in almost absolute seclusion. A genial and unreplaceable influence had long before this passed away from the little principality in the person of the Landgravine Elizabeth, who had devoted a large proportion of her English income to the needs of her adopted home. The letters of her old age offer a pleasant picture of her oonstantbenefioence, her kindness in word and deed, her genial hospitalities, and her harmless amusements. That sense of duty which, to a oharacter like hers, becomes second nature made her cling to the last to Homburg and the castle which she had half rebuilt; but she was almost equally happy in England and in Hanover. Warmly attached as she seems to have been to her brothers in general-she has a warm word of recognition for the considerate kindness of the Prince Regent at the time of his father's death and an expression of pity for ' poor Ernest' at a time when not many such expressions were bestowed upon him-she cherished a special affection for King William IV, whom she ' would sit and admire in silence all day,' and for the duke of Cambridge. The longevity of court diversions is illustrated by the description on p. 181 of the fancy fair at Hanover, an almost exact reproduction of those WirthschafUsn which had flourished a century and a half earlier, in the days of Ernest, Augustus, and Sophia. If the kind lady whose memory this unpretending volume will help to keep green had none of the wit and trained intellectual strength, she had at least the cheerfulness of disposition, the true-heartedness, and the unfailing sense of duty which were among the characteristics of her illustrious ancestress; and with these she combined a purity of thought and feeling not less becoming to the daughter of a king. A. W. WABD. OeschichU Evropetu, 1815 bit 1871. Von ALPBED STKBN. Erste Abtheilung, zweiter Band. (Berlin : Wilhelm Hertz. 1897.) THE second volume of Professor Stem's work more than maintains the promise of the first; the period with which he has to deal is in some c c 2 at University of Iowa Libraries/Serials Acquisitions on June 9, 2015 http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from