has carried the grouping system to the extreme. It would seem natural to speak of the earliest Spanish and French settlements in connection with the explorations by the representatives of those nations in place of leaving the discussion until after the English colonies have been established. The Period of European Interference (pp. 356-392), including such subjects as: the French Revolution, Jay Treaty, Purchase of Louisiana, War in 1812, and Monroe Doctrine, precede the discussion of Hamilton's financial measures, so essential to an understanding of the establishment of the new government.

Mr. Doub has made the study of "civics" a second leading feature. With a limited number of pages, the various functions of government receive but little consideration. In the analysis of the Constitution (pp. 341-347), the judiciary is unduly emphasized by giving it as much space as the legislative and executive departments together. Among the commendable features are the following: the space given to the life of the people; comparatively few pages given to accounts of the wars; and the large number of well-executed maps. "Questions and topics" are given at the close of each general period, the questions being chiefly upon the paragraphs of the text. To use some sixty-five pages in this way is a very doubtful expedient. There is but slight emphasis placed upon supplementary work. Four books only are recommended for the use of pupils and eight for teachers.

The reviewer believes the text, as a whole, to be too comprehensive for pupils of the grammar-school age. Parts of it might be used to advantage for reference, and it would also be valuable to teachers in conducting reviews. A few omissions should be noted. No mention is made of the Portuguese expeditions and their influence on Columbus. The difficulties Columbus encountered and the means by which he was finally enabled to start on his expedition are not related. No reference is made to Cortez and Pizarro; to the charters of 1609 and 1612; and to the influence of Thomas Hooker in Connecticut. The accounts of the expeditions of Marquette and La Salle would have been strengthened had the routes they took been sketched. The influence of John Hay on the problems of the Orient might well have been discussed.

J. A. JAMES.

A Brief Survey of British History, by C. E. Snowden, M.A. (London, Methuen, 1905, pp. xii, 159), is such an ingenious compilation of dates, names, and facts as a candidate for the doctor's degree in this country may sometimes excerpt from his store of notes and jot down together to aid his memory at the supreme test. But such a compilation, however valuable to the compiler, is rarely of much service to others. Mr. Snowden's compilation, according to the modest and ingenuous preface, was originally "made for the benefit of a class of small boys preparing for the Oxford Local Juniors Examination"; subsequently it was enlarged and "compared with and checked by several of the best school text-books". Though larger in bulk than Acland and Ransome's well

known little Handbook, with which a comparison is natural, it is decidedly slimmer in contents, and can scarcely be as useful to students or teachers. In numerous notes, made by boiling down parts of Medley's Manual, an attempt is made to give the essence of England's constitutional history, but the attempt is not a complete success. Several appendixes, "illustrative of the points of contact between Great Britain, her colonies, and foreign nations", are too disjointed to be suggestive. One would gladly have spared the lists of "Ladies of England" and of English queens since the Norman Conquest to make room for some such helpful tables of the composition and growth of the two Houses of Parliament as Acland and Ransome give. The full genealogical tables are good and mostly accurate. Half the value of a book of information of this kind lies in a good index; this book has none.

SIDNEY B. FAY.

COMMUNICATIONS

TO THE MANAGING EDITOR OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW:

Sir:

I ask the privilege of pointing out some of the incorrect statements and deductions made by the writer of the notice of my Short History of Venice in the REVIEW for October, 1905, pp. 132-135. Similar treatment of a work on American or English history might well go unnoticed, for we have a hundred experts in those fields who could judge between the reviewer and the author: but in Venetian history we have few experts, and were I to remain silent, your readers might infer that I accept the condemnation implied by your reviewer's strictures. A historian who has devoted years to his work cannot rest under the imputation of neglecting the elementary sources of material; especially when that imputation is made in the special organ of his fellow-workers in history.

As it would be impossible for you to print a detailed rebuttal, I shall limit myself to showing that on all the main questions I have the support of one or more of the recognized modern authorities. This will serve to dissipate the impression which he creates, that I am hopelessly wrong and alone on all points, while he is infallibly right and has the accepted opinion of every student of Venetian history behind him.

I. This is the paragraph from my history on which your reviewer first fastens : "So the year 452 stands as the date of the origin of Venice, although the old chroniclers, with the suspicious precision of ignorance, set March 25, 421, as the very day when, about noon,' the foundation stone of the city was laid. Their earlier date doubtless refers to an actual event-the sending from Padua of maritime tribunes to govern the settlers on the islands of Rivoalto, or Rialto; but to Attila's scourge we trace the decisive emigration from the mainland to the Lagoon out of which the Venetian Republic sprang" (p. 4).

To this statement, sufficiently guarded as it seems to me, your reviewer, omitting to quote the qualifying phrase which I have italicized, proceeds to say, what every student knows, that the document on which rests the story of the founding on March 25, 421, is a forgery; and he adds, "it is hard to see how the truth of an event of the fifth century can be inferred from a forged document of a much later period." It has apparently not occurred to him that tradition has also its place in any account of the obscure origins of states. A historian of ancient Rome who should omit the legend of Romulus, because as yet we have no baptismal record signed by the parish clerk, might be deemed overscrupulous. The question to decide is, Did the Paduans at that early

period probably control the island settlements? Mr. Horatio F. Brown says: "There is little doubt that the document, as we have it, is a forgery; though it is highly probable that its substance is true to fact; and if it cannot be taken as establishing the date of the foundation of Venice, it is instructive for various reasons."" Professor Musattiwhose recent critical work your reviewer seems to have overlookedsays: "It is indeed true that Malamocco and Chioggia were subject to the jurisdiction of Padua, which had its boundary precisely at Rialto."

II. Your reviewer continues: "Equally unfounded is the statement that Attila's invasion in 452 was the occasion of the foundation of an independent Venetian commonwealth." It will be observed that your reviewer, misusing my phrases "the origin of Venice" and "the decisive emigration from the mainland to the Lagoon out of which the Venetian Republic sprang ", would have me appear to state that “an independent Venetian commonwealth" was founded in exactly 452. If a historian should write, “To the settlers at Jamestown in 1607 and at Plymouth in 1620 we trace the decisive emigration out of which the American republic sprang", I venture to say that no critic would care to object that the American republic did not come into existence until 1776. But your reviewer, by imposing on my words a rigidity which does not belong to them, argues therefrom that my brief account of the origin of Venice is erroneous.

66

As to the causal relation between Attila's invasion and the origin of Venice, many authorities might be quoted; I confine myself to three: Mr. Hodgson says: The first beginnings of Venice are thus an incident in the history of Attila, the scourge of God, and he may in a sense be looked on as the founder of the city." Mr. Horatio Brown says: Although the year 452 has no more claim than the year 421 to be reckoned as the precise date for the foundation of Venice, yet it undoubtedly marks the first great point in the development of the lagoon population into a separate state."* Professor Musatti describes in some detail how the inhabitants of the mainland fled to the islands of the Lagoon, "and particularly to Rialto", and how Padua was thenceforth constrained to allow the islands to govern themselves. "Having become entirely independent [of Padua and the parent cities], the inhabitants of Maritime Venice were obliged to choose their own tribunes," etc."

III. Your reviewer says: "There is no credible evidence that any city was founded at Rialto until centuries after 421." This is a peculiarly elusive misstatement of my position: I nowhere affirm that a city was founded at Rialto in 421. I do imply, on the other hand, that refugees settled on the islands of Rialto and on the neighboring islands during the invasion. On this point Brown, Musatti, Molmenti,

1 H. F. Brown, Venice (London, 1893), 4.

2 Eugenio Musatti, La Storia Politica di Venezia (Padua, 1897), 10.

3 F. C. Hodgson, The Early History of Venice (London, 1901), 17.

4 Op. cit., 5.

5 Op. cit., 10-11.

Hodgkin, Hodgson, Hazlitt, and all modern authorities are agreed; and all the earlier historians, at least back to Andrea Dandolo (Muratori, Rerum Ital. Scriptores, XII.), held the same view.

IV. The next statement to which your reviewer objects is this: "During more than thirteen hundred years from the time when they [the island settlers] fled from Attila, they never submitted to domination from abroad, nor suffered a tyrant at home" (p. 4). Wrenched from its context, and from the qualifications of the succeeding forty pages, this statement is susceptible of misinterpretation. Your reviewer ought in fairness to have given my entire position: to have stated that later I am careful to use the phrase "virtual independence", as showing that, although for several centuries Venice was nominally dependent on the Eastern Empire, actually there is no record that a foreign envoy, governor, or other official ever dictated a single command in the Lagoon settlements, or that those settlements did not regulate their own affairs without foreign interference. If this does not constitute "virtual independence", in the sense in which I use these words, what does? Your reviewer's quotation from Procopius has long been known to scholars, but unfortunately it has not had the effect of clearing up doubts: on the contrary, opinions are still as divided as if it did not exist.

In regard to the nature of the influence of the Eastern Empire on the early Republic opinions vary greatly. Your reviewer, instead of saying, "Equally unfounded is the statement that Venice was never dependent upon Constantinople ", ought, in candor, to have defined what he means by "dependent", and to have hinted that this is one of the ancient controversies among historians. Instead of that, he makes this bald assertion, and leaves the reader to infer that my position throughout is unsound and unsupported. The plan of my book did not permit controversial digressions; but from p. 12 or from such a note as that on p. 18 an open-minded reader may see that I had considered both sides of this question of dependence. In general I lean to the side of the Venetians rather than to that of the Byzantines, and in this I have the support of many eminent authorities. I quote only three: "From this account [of the Chronicle of Altinum], confirmed by later chronicles, it appears clear then that the first political relation of the Venetians toward the Empire was (like that previously with the Gothic kings of Italy) that of a protectorate rather than of subjection (servitù)." "They recognized the emperor as overlord (alto signore); they bound themselves to the servile forms required by the haughty vanity of the eastern court; they accepted the general custom of heading their own acts with the name and year of the reigning Caesar; but they continued to rule themselves with their own laws, with their own magistrates; they made wars, concluded treaties-all things which they could not have done in a condition of subjection." "Most readers will, I believe,

1 Musatti, op. cit., 8.

2 S. Romanin, Storia Documentata di Venezia (Venice, 1853), I. 82.