The Poston Letters. Edited by James Gairdner. (A. Constable and
Co.)—This reissue of the celebrated edition of The Fasten Letters prepared by Mr. Gairdner will, we hope, serve to make it more widely known. Apart from their historical importance, these lettere have the strongest personal interest, and Mr. Gairdner wove them into a story in the introductions he furnished to the three little volumes. But to historians The Paston Letters are something more than a family record. They throw light on perhaps the darkest period of English history, the end of the Middle Ages. Mr. Gairdner was peculiarly fitted to deal with the fifteenth century. He had the industry and he had the faculty of weighing and wondering, perhaps best shown in his "Richard III. ; " to write the history of the fifteenth century is more or less to puzzle over dusty portraits. One may not agree with surmises; but without a sympathetic fancy what becomes of Humphrey of Gloucester, or Tiptoft, or, above all, Richard III. and Henry VII. P The actors of the fifteenth century left few memorials ; but these letters give many stepping. stones in the times of the Wars of the Roses and the troubles which immediately preceded. Not the least important factor in their value lies in the fact that the Pastons lived in Norfolk. Letters from Norfolk and London were at this time letters from the two most influential parts of England.
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