History of England under Henry IV. By James Hamilton Wylie,
M.A. Vol. II. 1405-1406. (Longmans.)—Mr. Wylie continues, with indefatigable patience, this laborious work. What would be the limits of a complete history of England were it to be written on this scale, it is difficult to imagine. The list of authorities which Mr. Wylie has consulted for these volumes, containing, it will be observed, the history of two years only, is quite over- whelming. It occupies more than forty pages, and must contain not far off a thousand titles. We must frankly confess, much as we admire the industry with which Mr. Wylie has attacked this vast amount of materials, that the story is a little, or not a little, overweighted with details. Mr. Wylie knows so much about every person whom he mentions, and finds it so difficult to refrain from telling at least a portion of what he knows, that the .reader is apt to get overwhelmed. Take Chap. lviii. as an example, where the relations between Henry and the Courts of Castile and Portugal are described. First we have .a detailed account of Henry III. of Castile and Leon and his wife, Henry IV.'s half-sister, how a child was born, how the Xing died, his widow became very stout from drinking too much, and was buried at Toledo. To Henry, King of Castile, succeeds Jae I., King of Portugal, who had married the English King's own sister, Philippa. An obiter dictum intervenes that Catherine Swynford was an infamous adulteress. The story of their married life follows, and is succeeded by the praises of Philippa, and a disparaging notice of the private life of King Joao. The King had, it seems, an illegitimate daughter who married the Earl of Arundel. We even hear that the young couple had casks of Portuguese wine sent to them, and that these were welcome additions to their housekeeping. All this is interesting, but it is a leisurely way of writing history.
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