think that Gfrörer has given this feature of the History [the dependence of Venice on the Eastern Empire] undue prominence.""

V. Your reviewer says (p. 134): "Mr. Thayer's account of the growth of the Venetian state gives us little that is new, and there is a lack of distinction in bringing out the perspective of the great events." These statements do not agree with those which have reached me during the past few months from the best living authorities in America and Italy on Venetian history, and from other historians and scholars.

VI. Your reviewer censures me for not explaining "as clearly as we should wish how the degenerate Romans . . . became transformed into the... masterful Venetians". I do not explain for the very good reason that there is no sufficient evidence. Gfrörer (Geschichte Venedigs, Graz, 1872, p. 4), not to mention other writers, found the same blank.

VII. Your reviewer finds my account of the Council of Ten "quite misleading". He says that "the political activity of that council was called forth (like the dictatorship in Rome) in emergencies," etc. This is as correct as it would be to say that the British prime minister acts in time of war only. He extols the account of the Venetian constitution in the Quarterly Review as being "perhaps the best". My own account was derived directly from the Venetian sources; I did not, in fact, read the Quarterly Review article until many months after writing my chapter, and I am therefore innocent of the imputation of plagiarism. One familiar with the Venetian sources on this point would hardly set a high value on the Quarterly's article, which even in English is not to be compared, for instance, with Mr. Horatio Brown's summary in his Venetian Republic (Temple Primer Series, 1902, pp. 98-118).

In conclusion let me remark that your reviewer has failed to give the reader a true idea of the general character of my book. One might infer, from his method, that I had produced a voluminous critical history, inviting controversy on the most minute verbal and textual matters. Instead of that, I have attempted in the course of 80,000 words to make a rapid narrative of the general course of Venetian development, and to interpret its significance. In this respect, the book might still have value, even were its account of the origins as absurd as a reader might gather from your reviewer's opinions. Every scholar welcomes criticism which helps to correct errors: but is there, for a critic, a greater error than to apply to one species of historical writing methods of criticism which are appropriate only to a very different kind? What should we think of a critic who treated Mr. John Morley's terse monograph on Voltaire by canons fitting for Professor David Masson's six colossal volumes on Milton? Any historian, from Thucydides to Bryce, can be discredited by the method which your reviewer has applied to my book.

'Hodgson, op. cit., xviii.

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER.

TO THE MANAGING EDITOR:

It would be ungracious to question the justice of the criticism in the excellent (and flattering) review of the Library of Congress edition of the Journals of the Continental Congress, printed in the October issue of this REVIEW (XI. 170-172); but the point of view of the editor of the Journals may be of interest and perhaps offer some ground for introducing a better general system of treating such compilations. So many details are concerned in the preparation and printing of such a work that it is impossible to believe that serious errors have not been committed; and the most careful consideration may not have prevented technical blunders which reduce the utility of the volumes to the student. For all such errors the editor is responsible.

It was my original intention to include in each volume a list of the members of the Congress for the period covered by the volume. I soon concluded that such a list would be misleading. The times of the beginning and of the length of service differed in the different colonies and states, and vacancies were filled on various systems. A member might serve for only a part of his term, and the delegation from a colony in December might be very different from that in January of the same year. The usual manner of preparing such lists, e. g., William C. Houston, 1779-1782, was apt to mislead, because there was no evidence when the actual service began or when it terminated. I saw the same difficulty in a single year's record, and believed that a simpler and more certain method was to leave to the investigator the task of determining the membership and attendance as should meet his particular needs. The means of doing this is to be found in the index. Is the delegation of a colony in question? Under each colony is a reference to the credentials of its representation, and the credentials give the precise conditions of appointment. Is an individual delegate needed? Under each name is given a reference to the credentials under which he acted, and mention of his attendance where particularly noted. Further, a list of the committees on which he serves will indicate in a general way his attendance from day to day, so far as that can be determined; and from his correspondence notes supplementing this record are taken. By these means his actual service can be traced and the incompleteness of a bald list of members obviated. The person consulting the volume can hardly go astray. In the volume for 1776 will be given a list of the "standing committees " as they existed from year to year, but I cannot believe that a list of the members of the Congress would be an addition.

The use of erased (or lined) type is to show the development of a paper in the process of composition or passage through Congress. The writer of a report will weigh his words and phrases, and the changes made are of value as they indicate the processes of his thought. His original propositions may be altered by others, or struck out, or displaced by amendments; and a comparison will mark the differences of opinion in committee or in Congress. The erased type permits the en

tire paper to be given in an intelligible form without the awkward multiplication of brackets, parentheses, and notes, and without resorting to typographical vagaries which disfigure the page, when erasures of text and insertions are sought to be shown in cold type. Lined type was used in the Writings of Jefferson, Washington, Monroe, and Madison (Putnams), and I did not believe any explanation to be necessary. The selection of the year as a unit was to obviate a great multiplication of indexes. If 1776 require three volumes, there would be six volumes and six indexes, and with 1777, nine, in place of three and four as under the present scheme. A final volume, comprising a combined index to the series, will obviate in part the objection to the method adopted. An account of the papers or manuscripts themselves is reserved for the "Calendar of the Papers of the Continental Congress ", now in preparation.

I shall welcome criticism and suggestion, as the opportunity presented by the liberal management of the Library of Congress for a final edition is not one to be wasted or impaired by an insistence on personal methods or individual prejudices.

WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD.

NOTES AND NEWS

GENERAL.

The American Historical Association holds its twenty-first annual meeting at Baltimore and Washington on December 26-29. At the first session, held jointly with the American Political Science Association, addresses will be delivered by the presidents of the two associations. Two sessions are devoted to conferences on questions connected with history in elementary schools and in colleges, with the work of historical societies, and with church history, two sessions more are given up to papers on American history, and one to papers dealing mainly with the history of Europe. A full account of the proceedings of the meeting will be given in the April number of the REVIEW.

The second annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association was held in San Francisco on December 1 and 2. At the general session, on Friday afternoon, three papers were read: "Legislating through State Constitutions", by Eugene I. McCormac; "Origin of the National Land System under the Confederation", by Payson Jackson Treat; and “ Fugitive Slave Legislation in America ", by F. G. Franklin. In the evening an informal dinner was held at which the annual address by President Horace Davis was delivered. The Saturday morning session was devoted to the subject of the teaching of history, while that in the afternoon was given over to Pacific coast history, with papers by Professor Schafer on "The First Great Movement of Americans to the Pacific "; by C. K. Bonestell on "Secularization of the Missions of Upper California"; and by Professor C. A. Duniway on "Slavery in California after 1849". At the business session the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Horace Davis; vice-president, William D. Fenton; secretary and treasurer, Max Farrand; executive committee, James D. Phelan, H. Morse Stephens, Joseph Schafer, C. A. Duniway.

Samuel Adams Drake died December 5, at Kennebunkport, Maine, aged seventy-two. His historical writings dealt principally with New England subjects, although he published a volume on Virginia and another on the West. His work, although much of it was purposely adapted to younger readers, was scholarly and careful. His tastes were antiquarian, as is shown in the titles of a number of his pamphlets and sketches relating to New England. Among his more important works are Border Wars of New England (1897), based on material collected by his father, Samuel G. Drake, The Making of New England (1886), and a volume of eleven British narratives relating to Bunker Hill. At AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XI.-30. (455)

the time of his death he was at work on a history of the United States, which his father began, and which he had labored long to complete.

M. Alfred Rambaud, Member of the Institute and professor of modern history at the Sorbonne, died in Paris on November 10 at the age of sixty-two. He was an active participant in public affairs and a leader of public opinion as well as a distinguished historian. In 1870, his thesis on L'Empire Grec au Xe Siècle, Constantin Porphyrogénète, marked the revival of Byzantine studies in France. For reasons of public policy he desired that his countrymen should be acquainted with the history of Russia and together with a few others undertook the task of familiarizing them with it. In 1876 he published Chansons Héroiques de la Russie, in 1877, Moscou et Sébastopol, and in 1878, his wellknown Histoire de la Russie. From 1879 to 1880, he was Minister of Public Instruction under Jules Ferry, and a zealous defender of his chief's policy of expansion. In collaboration with others, be brought out in 1886 France Coloniale and in 1885-1888 published his Histoire de la Civilisation Française. In 1890 appeared his Recueil des Instructions données aux Ambassadeurs et Ministres de France en Russie, and in 1893-1901 the admirable Histoire Générale du IVe Siècle à nos jours, which he edited in co-operation with M. E. Lavisse. From 1896 to 1898 he was again Minister of Public Instruction. In 1897 he became a member of the Institute. His last work was Jules Ferry (1903). M. Rambaud excelled in brilliant and exact synthesis and was able to present sound learning in a popular form. He was the author of a few novels and for some years was the editor of the Revue Bleue.

Professor Wilhelm Oncken, of the University of Giessen, who died on August 11, aged sixty-six, is most widely known as the editor of the Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen, 1879-1893, to which he contributed three monographs on different periods of the modern history of Prussia. His earlier works mostly concerned the ancient history of Greece.

Professor Ernst Berner, archivist of the royal family of Prussia, died on October 12, at the age of fifty-two. His writings include: Die Geschichte des preussischen Staats, 1896; Wilhelm der Grosse, 1897; Aus dem Briefwechsel König Friedrichs I. von Preussen und seiner Familie, 1901; Der Regierungsanfang des Prinzregenten von Preussen und seiner Gemahlin, 1902. Professor Berner's place as editor of the Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft will be taken by Dr. Georg Schuster.

Sir William Muir, an eminent Arabic scholar and Principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1885 to 1902, died on July 11 at the age of eighty-six. Among his works are the Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Hegira; and The Caliphate, its Rise, Decline and Fall. At the time of the Indian Mutiny he was in charge of the Intelligence Department of the government of the Northwest Provinces of India,