The See of liome in the Middle Ages. By the
Rev. Oswald J. Reichel. (Longmans.)—Mr. Reichel's book is the work of an accomplished man, who, in dealing with a subject that becomes continually more entangled with controversy, fully carries out his undertaking to be impartial, while he does not pretend to be indifferent. Ile will not please those whose Antichrist is the Pope, still loss will he satisfy the Infallibilists, who indeed must have a difficulty in finding out an historian after their own minds. But for a calm sensible review of the influences which made Rome, for good or evil, the centre of human life, this book will not be easily surpassed. Wo may instance, as specially excellent, the estimate of the character and work of Gregory the Great. The sketch of Nicolas I., with the strange contradiction of power built on foundations so questionable, oven so false, used for such noble purposes, may also be noted with praise, as may be an estimate of the work of Wycliff, with which we cannot indeed profess to agree, but which is certainly worth weighing. The fault of the book is, we think, that its subject is too large for its space ; travelling, as it does, over a period of eight or nine hundred years, it sometimes becomes somewhat sketchy and unsatis- factory in its treatment. Nor does Mr. Reichel possess the gift of picturesque description. Let any ono, for instance, compare his meagre account of the coronation of Charles the Groat with the brilliant passage which he will find on the same subject in Dr. Burgin's "Holy Roman Empire." But the volume is unquestionably one of consider- able value, written in a genuinely historical spirit, and filled with evidence of industry and research.
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