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314 Terry : History of Europe
Dr. Macmillan's story of the doings and sufferings of the * Doctors'
is told in a lucid and interesting manner. He knows the period well, and
has cheerfully faced the irksome task of digging into documents, where
are entombed the dry bones of extinct theological controversy. He
has brooked this task in the hope of fetching from the writings of the
* Doctors '
some light that may illuminate the dark ways of present-day
ecclesiastical dispute. This hope is a worthy one, and should not be
disappointed ; but there is a grave peril attached to the writing of
history that sets before it a polemical purpose. Dr. Macmillan has put
into a number of compact appendices the main facts of the * Doctors' '
careers, and it is to these perhaps that the student of history
will resort
rather than to the chapters that set forth the significance and drift of these
facts. The ' Doctors '
were, without doubt, as noble a set of men as this
country ever produced, and their learning gave them a front place
among the foremost savants of Europe in their day. Dr. Macmillan
clearly establishes this, but the picture that he gives of them leaves
them in the position of
very
thin shades. This may arise from lack of
biographical material. But may it not be, that it is the doom of men
who have to give their life to theological conflict, to part with the fairer
and more interesting parts of their humanity.
A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
TO THE FALL OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE. By Charles Sanford Terry.
Cr. 8vo, pp. xv, 288. London : Routledge & Sons. 38. 6d.
No more difficult task of compression can well be conceived than that of
telling the story of medieval Europe in 300 pages without squeezing all
juice out of it. Professor Terry has succeeded : his is a brisk and vigorous
short history, in which such episodes as the Norse and Norman conquests,
the Crusades, and the Conciliar movement, receive their due place of
emphasis in the close-packed record of a thousand years. Most readable
and well indexed, it is a capital precis of the Middle Ages.
SHAKESPEARE AS A GROOM OF THE CHAMBER. By Ernest Law, B.A.,
F.S.A., Barrister at Law. Pp. vii, 64. With Illustrations. 4to.
London : G. Bell & Sons, Ld. 1910. 35. 6d. nett.
THIS slim tract deals with two events in Shakespeare's life. The author
believes that the negative evidence, which he marshals, is
(as Dr. Furnivall
'
'
and the other took
thought) against the view that Shakespeare players
part in the Triumphal Progress of King I. James from the Tower to
Westminster Abbey even though they each received a grant of royal
red
cloth for a suit. It was not so, however, at the funeral of King James.
Then the 'Actors and Comedians '
walked in it clad in black, immediately
behind c Baston le Peer the Dauncer '
and in front of the '
Messengers of the
Chamber.'
The other and more is important point the verification of Mr. Halliwell-
Phillips's statement (accepted by Mr. Sidney Lee) that Shakespeare with the
other Kings' players took some part in the festivities in honour of the
Spanish Ambassador-extraordinary at Somerset House in August, 1604.