NATURE 



303 



THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 



1905. 



RECENT EXGLISH HISTORY. 

 ■Social England. Edited by H. D. Traill and J. S. 



Mann. Vol v., pp. lii + 864; vol. vi., pp. lvi + 948. 



(London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1904.) Price 14s. 



net each volume. 

 ^1! Introductory History of England. By C. R. L. 



Flttcher. Pp. xvii + 397. (London : John Murray.) 



Price ys. 6d. 

 Studies oti .inglo-Saxon Institutions. By H. M. 



Chadwick. Pp. xiii + 420. (Cambridge University 



Press, 1905.) Price 8x. net. 



IN the fifth and sixth volumes of " Social 

 England," lately re-issued in an illustrated 

 edition (1904), considerable prominence is given to 

 subjects of scientific as well as of historical interest. 

 Thus Mr. T. \\'hittaker (rather more adequately 

 than in earlier stages) writes on philosophy and 

 natural science in the eighteenth centurj- and the 

 Napoleonic age, and for the same period Mr. D'Arcy 

 Power discusses medicine and public health, Mr. 

 Raymond Beazley exploration and the advance of 

 geographical knowledge, and Mr. G. T. \Varner 

 manufacturing progress, machinen,', and the trans- 

 formation of industry (v., 31-47, 56-73, 145-55. 292- 

 307, 321-33. 408-35. 543-6. 560-84, 625-45, 756-60, 

 805-22). 



In the final or nineteenth centurj- volume, geolog\", 

 chemistry, astronomy, physics, biolog}', anthropology, 

 engineering, mining and metallurgy, applications of 

 electricity', and the railway system of the United 

 Kingdom are also treated, in addition to our old 

 friends philosoph}', medicine, and exploration. The 

 list of scientific writers is much enlarged, and com- 

 prises Prof. T. G. Bonney, Mr. Robert Steele, Mr. 

 H. C. Jenkins, Lord Farrer, Miss .\. ^L Gierke, Mr. 

 ^V. G. Rhodes, Mr. O. G. Jones, and Dr. J. Scott 

 Keltie (vi., 76-95, 239-90, 413-48, 675-793, 892-927). 



.\mong these contributions we may especially 

 notice, for the sake of illustration, that of Dr. Keltie 

 on British exploration, 1815-85. Here we have a 

 good, clear, business-like summary (very well illus- 

 trated, especially by contemporary maps) of a great 

 and significant chapter in the life-history of the 

 English people. But the amount of matter to be 

 treated is so vast, and Dr. Keltie is so con- 

 scientious in his determination not to omit a refer- 

 ence, however brief, to every important personage 

 and event within the limits of his subject, that the 

 narrative becomes at times a chronicle of the nature 

 of "materials for history." Thus, in tracing the 

 course of British explorations in Central .Vsia and 

 the Far East alone, the work of Moorcroft, Wood, 

 Shaw, Forsyth, Ha)T\ard, Trotter, Carey, Bell, 

 James, Younghusband, Basil Hall, Collinson. Fortune, 

 Blakiston, Ney Elias, Sladen, Margar\', Gill, Baber, 

 Colquhoun, McCarthy, Williamson, Gilmore, Alcock, 

 and Mrs. Bishop is summarised in two pages. It 

 is no doubt difficult to avoid such treatment, and the 

 secretary of our Geographical Societ>- is an excellent 

 NO. Iii43, VOL. 71] 



chronicler; but it is perhaps open to question whether 

 a more selective and less annalistic method might 

 not have been followed in this as in certain other 

 articles, such as the " Engineering " of Mr. O. G. 

 Jones, where a more philosophic style is adopted with 

 marked success. 



The British history of the nineteenth, or even of 

 the eighteenth, century in one volume, even though 

 that volume run to 930 pages, is an undertaking 

 of no small difficulty; as the assistant editor — and 

 true chief pilot — of the venture, Mr. J. S. Mann, 

 himself admits. Intellectual and industrial achieve- 

 ments are now so multifarious that they can hardly 

 be dealt with in the same book as the political and 

 social histon.-. Science has become more than ever 

 cosmopolitan ; processes in the great staple trades 

 have undergone developments far too specialised for 

 the ordinarv reader ; to a vast number of secondary- 

 and miscellaneous industries and interests it is im- 

 possible to assign any adequate recognition ; a bare 

 enumeration, the recognition of an allusion, is all 

 that can be spared for whole chapters of national 

 progress during the last age. To such themes as 

 railways, merchant shipping, the machinery of com- 

 merce, the new developments in social organisation, 

 art, and literature, it seems almost useless to devote 

 a few pages ; while the subject of colonial historj' 

 has only to be mentioned for the most casual reader 

 to recognise the increased complication which the 

 nineteenth century has brought to the national 

 storj-. 



Even since 1885, where the editors originally drew 

 their line (evidently with some later regrets that this 

 boundary could not be shifted down to the close of 

 the Victorian reign), the local government of the 

 United Kingdom has been profoundly modified ; new 

 methods have been introduced into industrv' ; ship- 

 building has taken a fresh start; legal reform has 

 made notable progress ; labour questions have been 

 attended by many fresh developments ; and an 

 Imperial and Conservative movement (or reaction) 

 of the most far-reaching character has influenced 

 every side of national life and consciousness. 



All the more heartily, then, we can congratulate 

 the editors, contributors, and publishers of " Social 

 England " on the measure of success they have 

 realised, on the immense body of valuable inform- 

 ation (sometimes a trifle unsifted, sometimes marred 

 by error, but on the whole highly creditable) which 

 is presented in these volumes, on the impartiality' 

 and truly scientific spirit which pervade almost the 

 whole of the work, and by no means least, on the 

 suggestive and representative illustrations b}' which 

 the best of all possible commentaries is afforded to 

 the text. 



Mr. Fletcher's " Introductory Histon,' of England '' 

 down to the accession of the Tudors, where the author 

 fixes, for his purpose, the close of the Middle Ages, 

 is a brave and vigorous attempt to get away from 

 dulness without losing touch of truth, to invest the 

 story of mediseval England with an interest which 

 is lacking in such arid text-books as have become 

 only too plentiful of late. .\s we might e.xpect from 



