7 APRIL 1894, Page 28

Florentine Life during the Renaissance. By Walter B. Scaife. (Johns

Hopkins Press, Baltimore.)—Dr. Scaife has studied his facts very carefully, and leaves out little or nothing that research into Florentine history could show him. But he wants the literary touch ; his chapters only escape tediousness by the evident sincerity of the labour which has been expended on them. And they somehow fail, for all the learning that they possess, to make an impression, or to help us in realising the life which they

describe.