'11111 HISTORY AND ART OF THE EASTERN PROVINCES OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE.
Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Boman Empire. Edited by W. Id, Ramsay, Professor of Humanity in the University of Aberdeen. (Published by the University of Aberdeen. 20s. net.)—The volume of essays published by Professor (now Sir William) Ramsay on the occasion of the quatercentenary of Aberdeen University must receive high praise, not only for the valuable matter which it contains, but for the spirit of indefatigable and scholarly research with which it is instinct. This spirit is Sir William Ramsay's own. He has recognised that Asia Minor is the finest field wherein to register what he has called elsewhere "the fertile contact of East and West," and he has devoted his life to laying the sure foundations to the study of its monuments. Two of the papers are from his own pen, one being an inquiry into an extremely curious anti-Christian association of the third century, the other a reprint of his brilliant Redo Lecture for 1906. The longest essay is written by his daughter. It is an interesting contribution to the controversy concerning the relative artistic influence of Rome and Asia, enlarged from a paper published in the Hellenic Society's Journal. Miss Ramsay's evidence strengthens the Asiatic case. Four of Sir William Ramsay's pupils publish a number of important inscriptions, collected by themselves and by him; a fifth contributes a paper on the topography of ancient Smyrna. From the University of Aberdeen these scholars have derived most of the funds which have enabled them to pursue thoir work, and the University has good reason to be satisfied with the use to which she has put her moneys. Would that there were more to be placed in such hands! While we hesitate, monuments vanish, inscriptions are broken up, and we are left without data for the true history of Asia Minor, the history of the people as opposed to the mere record of Kings and battles supplied by the chroniclers,
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