26 APRIL 1930, Page 29

(Continued from page 714.) All who knew the late Professor

Bury, whether in person or through his brilliant writings, will welcome the Selected Essays of J. B. Bury, which Mr. Harold. Temperley has put together and prefixed with a' sympathetle - essay (Cambridge- Univer- sity Press, 12s. 6d.).- More than half the•voltune is concerned with Byzantine history, in which the author had a European reputation. Here is, for instance, an early paper in which Bury definitely imputed the chief blame for the disruption of the Eastern Empire to Justinian—of all men—because in his desire to conciliate Rome he antagonized the Eastern Churches in Syria and Egypt. Of more general interest, perhaps, are Bury's views on the science and method of history. In a witty paper on " Cleopatra's Nose " he developed his view that historians do well to admit the importance of the indi:. vidual—Cleopatra or Napoleon or St. Paul, for instance—and that the so-called philosophies of history are usually 'Ms:. leading.

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