SHORTER NOTICES.
Mr. Bridge's first volume, describing the regency of Anne of Beaujeu, revealed him as a historian of exceptional promise. His second volume, on the Italian adventure of Charles
shows the promise fulfilled. Mr. Bridge is not merely learned and accurate ; he writes extremely well, and makes his -characters - live: Charles is usually represented as a mere vicious fool, managed by shrewder men like Briconnet. Mr. Bridge, rightly as we think, contends that the war on Naples vras the King's own design ; Charles, though unstable; as the wind in ordinary matters, was 'for once resolute in asserting the Angevin rights in Naples against the Aragonese, and would not be turned from his purpose, though his wisest coun- sellors and the French people disliked the policy. This view makes the affair intelligible • even a weak fool may pursue a personal voutletta with a 'determination otherwise foreign to his nature. •In any case, Mr. Bridge makes clearer than ever the profound importance of Charles's actions. The French invasion of Italy in 1404 opened a new era in European history,; the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1458 was,. by comparison, an event of secondary importance. Italy, the most highly civilized country in Europe, was shown to be -defenceless -against -her-ruder -...ighbotas, who made her their prey. France, relieved from English domination and united at last,--could find no better use former renewed strength than in despoiling the Italian States. This aggressive policy ruined Italy and brought no profit to France, and yet French statesmen persisted in it up to the days of Napoleon III., if not later. Mr. 'Bridge's account of this famous episode of 1494-5 is as easy to read as any novel. He does justice to the valour of the French, especially at the desperate battle of Fornovn, while at the same time he shows how their methods of " frightfulness " horrified and embittered even the most Francophile among the people of Naples, to whom they osten- sibly •came as friends.
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