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43 Browne : The Persian Revolution
loan was raised and new tariffs imposed. Rioting began and petitions
for reform were presented in April 1906. The idea of l Reform' grew
and filled the air, the priests, for once, finding themselves on the side of the
reformers. A constitution was granted and the election of the first majlis
(laughed at by the British press) commenced. Journalism quickened with
the tumult, and the constitution was signed a week before the Shah's death in
January 1907. The national assembly had to face the hostility of the new
Shah backed by Russian support open and secret, and a reactionary movement.
An abortive coup tfEtat was attempted in December 1907, but
riots continued and another bloody coup d Etat (23rd June, 1908) for a time
quieted matters, the Russian in the Shah's service, Liakhoff, seeming to
be supreme. Insurrection and rioting continued, and when later the
Nationalists entered Tihran, the new Shah, Muhammad 'AH Mirza, fled
to the Russian Legation, his little son Ahmad was placed on the vacant
throne and the second majlis convoked on 1 5th November. The author
strives against the persistent British belief that the government of the
Constitutionalists is a ' Comic Opera Government,' and thinks the movement
that called it into being was a national struggle for existence. He
has put his facts and narratives into a form valuable to students who will
read his somewhat bewildering book in spite of its many difficulties.
The History of Kirkintilloch by Select Contributors (Kirkintilloch Herald
Office, 33. 6d. net) amplifies but slightly the parochial history given by
Watson in his Kirkintilloch Town and Parish (J. Smith & Sons, 1894).
It is free from the gossip into which the older volume frequently lapses, and
it is marked especially in the essays under Mr. T. Dalrymple Duncan's
name by an obvious historical equipment. But there is frequent over-
lapping and repetition, and no continuous thread binds the various essays
are almost com-
together ; important periods in the history of the parish
pletely overlooked while valuable space is devoted to unimportant details.
From Pastor Home's monograph on the general expansion of the town we
learn that so late as 1720, the Kirk-Session was investigating charges
'
wives
against individuals of buying and selling
for a month.' Mr. T.
Dalrymple Duncan makes a scholarly presentation of the results of recent
archaeological research, showing that the Peel dominating Kirkintilloch, is
as it stands, not Roman but feudal. Originally trenched by Agricola and
reconstructed by Lollius Urbicus, A.D. 143, it became in the early years of
the twelfth century the site of a stronghold of the powerful Comyn family ;
and razed to the ground by the Bruce after the War of Independence, its
stones were finally quarried for the walls of the
eighteenth century built
Parish Church, and for neighbouring dykes. Mr. Andrew Stewart, clarum
et venerabile nomen, and the late Dr. Whitelaw are respectively responsible
for painstaking contributions on Scholastic history and literary remains.
THOMAS JOHNSTON.
Un Cavalier Ltger. Le Colonel Clere, 1 791-1 866. Par Alfred Marquiset.
(Pp. 63. Paris : Honore Champion, 1911.) A huzzar whose service began
in 1807, who fought in Holland, in the Peninsular War, and at Waterloo >