12 APRIL 1890, Page 23

England under Charles IL, 1660 - 1678. Edited by W. F. Taylor.

(D. Nutt.)—The Restoration and the Treaty of Nimeguen are the boundary events of the period dealt with in this volume. Mr. Taylor has gone to a great number of authorities for his matter. Indeed, the wonder is that he has been able to compress so much into so small a space. He quotes from Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year," and apologises by saying that Defoe, "though not in London itself during the plague, gathered his information from

those who had lived through the visitation." It seems almost impossible to give an account of the Plague without going to Defoe. Still, to say that Defoe "was not in London during the Plague," is a curious way of minimising the fact that he was a child of four when it happened.