mon use, and decent people may be found
who never saw a copy. Mr. Lea says: "I have met with editions of Venice
issued in 1589, 1600, 1605, and 1646, of Ferrara in 1591, of Frankfort
in 1608, of Padua in 1625, and of Naples in 1660, and there are
doubtless numerous others." This is the general level throughout; the
rare failures disappear in the imposing supererogation of knowledge. It
could not be exceeded by the pupils of the Goettingen seminary or the
Ecole des Chartes. They have sometimes a vicious practice of overtopping
sufficient proof with irrelevant testimony: but they transcribe all
deciding words in full, and for the rest, quicken and abridge our toil
by sending us, not to chapter and verse, but to volume and page, of the
physical and concrete book. We would gladly give Bluebeard and his
wife--he had but one after all--in exchange for the best quotations from
sources hard of access which Mr. Lea must have hoarded in the course of
labours such as no man ever achieved before him, or will ever attempt
hereafter. It would increase the usefulness of his volumes, and double
their authority. There are indeed fifty pages of documentary matter not
entirely new or very closely connected with the text. Portions of this,
besides, are derived from manuscripts explored in France and Italy, but
not it seems in Rome, and in this way much curious and valuable material
underlies the pages; but it is buried without opportunity of display or
scrutiny. Line upon line of references to the Neapolitan archives only
bewilder and exasperate. Mr. Lea, who dealt more generously with the
readers of _Sacerdotal Celibacy_, has refused himself in these
overcrowded volumes that protection against overstatement. The want of
verifiable indication of authorities is annoying, especially at first;
and it may be possible to find one or two references to Saint
Bonaventure or to Wattenbach which are incorrect. But he is exceedingly
careful in rendering the sense of his informants, and neither strains
the tether nor outsteps his guide. The original words in very many cases
would add definiteness and a touch of surprise to his narrative.

If there is anywhere the least infidelity in the statement of an
author's meaning, it is in the denial that Marsilius, the imperial
theorist, and the creator with Ockam of the Ghibelline philosophy that
has ruled the world, was a friend of religious liberty. Marsilius
assuredly was not a Whig. Quite as much as any Gue