OTHER RECENT BOOKS
English Historical Documents, Vol. VIII: 1660-1714. Edited by Andrew Browning. (Eyre & Spottiswoode. 80s.) THE golden opinions won by the first volume to appear in this series can be extended in some measure to the second. It covers a critical phase in English history from the uneasy and incomplete restoration of the Stuart dynasty to the death of Anne, its last member. In assembling this massive volume, Professor Browning has flung his net wide and provided full extracts from both familiar and unfamiliar sources. It begins with the Declaration of Breda with which Charles II prefaced his return to England and ends with some lines on the Duke of Marlborough by his great con- temporary Joseph Addison. Elsewhere in the volume 'the reader may light upon such things to stimulate his historical imagina- tion, such as an eye-witness account of Charles II touching for the king's evil, a description by John Evelyn of London during the great frost, or the statute estab- lishing Queen Anne's Bounty. In addition, Professor Browning has supplied brief forewords to each section and excellent maps and tables; but the general introduction is no more than a straightforward political narrative in which economic and other important issues have no part, and the index is too limited in scope to be of much use. Yet no student of the period will in future be able to ignore its wide-ranging extracts and invaluable bibliographies; and it is also a book into which every educated man will at some time want to dip for his instruction and delight. For those who can afford it, here is treasure indeed. 1.13.
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