The indulgence of his proscriptive propensity has caused the removal of those in the several bureaus who were acquainted with the course of business and the character of the unfounded claims against the government which were pending before them or had been overruled. Many rejected claims have been represented26 and admitted; old ones awaked from the slumber of years, new ones conjured up, and both have met with favor beyond their merits. It seems as if political antagonism in this department had been carried not only to men but to things; that claims were considered just because they had been rejected by the preceding administration. Mr. E. is unquestionably a man of considerable talents and considerable distinction as a Lawyer, incapacity cannot therefore be received as an excuse for the abuses of power in his department. The course pursued by him and those under him can be explained in no other way than by supposing him to act on the mistaken policy that popularity is to be obtained by opening the door of the Treasury to every one who knocks at it. Such a man is not fit to have been imposed upon such a President as Genl Taylor-a president who had not the capacity if he can be presumed to have the disposition to look after and controll him. The Secretary of the Interior, admitted to be the ablest among the Septemvirs who surround the Presidential Effegy, is also the most ponderous and has contributed more than any of his coadjutors to sink the administration.

(Further remarks on Genl. Taylor made after his death to be inserted on the 3d page of the 3 sheet [p. 458, above].)

On the 9th of July the country was astounded by the announcement of Genl. Taylor's death. For this event the public mind was not prepared; scarcely had any notice gone forth of his illness. Public sympathy was deeply moved and the bereavement regarded with very general sorrow. His administration was excessively unpopular but it had not yet become extensively odious. There was still a hope extensively indulged that it would yet recover the ground it had lost. Many-very many still clung to their first favorable opinion of the President, believing that he had been overruled by his cabinet and that ere long he would understand its true character and either change it or assume a mastery over it which would vindicate the character they had conceived him to possess. The people generally when they reflected upon the elevated statesman so suddenly removed from them viewed him in the light he was [in] when first elected; the cloud which had settled over him since his administration first began instantly disappeared; the brilliancy of his military achievements was thrown around him and nothing but the success and achievements of the brave and successful soldier was seen, felt or talked of. The national mourning [was] general and sincere; the language of panegyrick arose to extravagance. Much was said in praise of the statesman, but the public eye rested mainly on the soldier. Eulogies are usually undiscriminating and in this case they were peculiarly so. Strict impartial military criticism has not yet undertaken to pass in review his achievements but when it does so I think it will not give him a more elevated position than that I have assigned to him in my remarks made before his death.

Though eminently successful in his military career it can hardly be 26 I. e., presented again.

AM, HIST. REV., VOL. XXIV.-31.

said he deserved success. Where a general for want of skill gets into difficulty that fact ought I think to detract something from his merit in extricating himself from it. Such was the case in relation to the battle[s] of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Genl Taylor's main depot was at Point Isabel: here he had a vast accumulation of arms, provisions and munitions of war. If they had have been lost his operation for the season would have been entirely arrested; if they had fallen into the hands of the enemy who much needed them they would have been greatly strengthened and would have been thereby enabled to protract the war. This depot in every way so important was left without any thing which can be called a guard; it was distant from the army twenty seven miles-and what was worse than all it was accessable to the enemy. Why they did not cross the Rio grande near its mouth and capture it no one can tell. They might without meeting with any considerable resistance, without any hazard have possessed themselves of it before Genl Taylor would have known it-certainly before he could have sent it any protection. He did not pretend to have known the strength of the enemy or any of their movements until they were discovered on the east side of the Rio Grande and had captured Capt Thornton and his party. Instead of crossing above Fort Brown had they crossed below and dashed on our Depot it must have fallen into their hand with the immense [amount] of property is contained.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

BOOKS OF ANCIENT HISTORY

Legends of Babylon and Egypt in relation to Hebrew Tradition. By LEONARD W. KING, Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, Professor in the University of London. [The Schweich Lectures, 1916.] (London: Humphrey Milford, for the British Academy. 1918. Pp. ix. 155.) PROFESSOR KING in taking up the somewhat familiar subject of a comparison between Babylonian, Egyptian, and Hebrew traditions in regard to the beginnings of things does so for the purpose of showing the bearings of important new material that has come to light. This material is the result in the main of the Nippur Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania which was fortunate enough to unearth literary material belonging to the early Sumerian period, even though the actual texts represent copies that do not carry us beyond 2000 B.C. The bulk of the new material was published by Dr. Arno Poebel, who worked for several years at the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, and whose publication has revealed among other things the source of the tradition of Berosus for the early and purely fanciful Sumero-Babylonian chronology.

The discussion throughout is based on an independent study of the new material, in the course of which many points hitherto doubtful are elucidated. Professor King shows very clearly that the later Babylonian stories of Creation and the Deluge, which have come down to us in their Semitic (or Akkadian) form chiefly from the library of Ashurbanapal, dating from the middle of the seventh century before our era, actually do revert to the very old Sumerian prototypes, but that in the course of the transmission, many of the Sumerian features became blurred or were intentionally modified to suit the views of the later age. The most interesting result, therefore, of Professor King's investigation is to show the gradual modification of the early tradition in its course along the centuries. The Semitic population of Babylonia now generally designated as Akkadian did not content themselves with bodily accepting the old Sumerian tradition, but inaugurated the process of steady modification. Professor King might have emphasized more strongly than he does the necessary contrast in traditions regarding the beginning of things according as they take shape among a people living in a mountainous region (which appears to have been the home of the Sumerians) and among those living in a low valley like that of the Euphrates. A

mountainous region is apt to suffer from a dearth of water whereas a valley such as we find in southern Mesopotamia, well watered by the overflow of two rivers, often suffers from a superabundance of water. This contrast may be traced more definitely than Professor King appears to admit in the course taken in the adaptation of the old Sumerian traditions to those which appear to be more distinctly Semitic. As to the very important question of the relation between Babylonian and Hebrew traditions, Professor King is strongly inclined, on the basis of the new material, to assume that the Hebrew traditions took definite shape in the century or two preceding the Exilic period. In this position he will have the support of most modern scholars. At the same time there are good grounds for assuming a far earlier and steady stream of influences into Palestine emanating from the Euphrates Valley on the one hand and to a lesser degree also from the Nile Valley, though it is impossible to follow the process in detail, chiefly because of the late date at which the Hebrew traditions, even after becoming fixed, received their present form. Professor King's three lectures represent a remarkably clear and highly interesting exposition of the important subject, and are to be strongly recommended to those who wish to follow the bearings of the latest archaeological discoveries on Biblical tradition. Incidental to the discussion a great many points are touched upon which are important also to students of the history of the ancient East. The book marks a decided advance upon previous works on the subject.

BOOKS OF MEDIEVAL AND MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY The Conversion of Europe. By CHARLES HENRY ROBINSON, D.D., Hon. Canon of Ripon. (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Company. 1917. Pp. xxiii, 640. $6.00.)

CANON ROBINSON, editorial secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and well known as author of a series of writings on missionary subjects, presents in this volume of six hundred pages a survey of the various attempts which resulted finally in the Christianization of the European peoples. In a considerable and useful introduction he points out the difficulties of his task arising from the meagreness of the material and its perversions for purposes of edification. The book illustrates these difficulties, and we have to thank the author for meeting them as well as he has. We only regret that so much valuable space has been given to quotations from other modern writers and that the fatal phrase "it is said that" has been employed so often where we should be glad to hear what Dr. Robinson himself knew or thought.

The historical treatment of religious conversion must always depend upon the view one takes of the conversional process. Our conventional usage implies an individual conviction of the truth of the ideas to which

the person or the group is "converted"; but there is another view which leaves out almost entirely this personal element. According to this. latter opinion the process of conversion may be described rather as a political or institutional one. The former we might not unfairly call the missionary view, the latter the historical. The former finds its chief interest in the personal contact of the believing missionary with the heathen and his unbelief. The latter, the historical view, is concerned rather with the observable phenomena as expressed in outward institutional forms. For the missionary the immediate circumstances, the spiritual arguments, the special superhuman manifestations are of decisive importance. The historian cares more for the conflict of races, the clash of religious practices, the relation of religion to politics and social customs, and thinks of "conversion" as the long resultant of friction among these rival forces.

Canon Robinson's book is frankly a missionary story. He writes the word Mission with a capital, as if to take the whole process of conversion out of the normal chain of human motive and place it in a higher world by itself. Here is little discussion of racial and cultural conditions of the peoples to be converted. All are alike "heathen". They yield to the "Christian" appeal, but we are left with but little understanding of what it was in them which responded to this appeal. Christianity was brought to them both as a set of doctrines and a way of life. They accepted the doctrines as a necessary accompaniment of the kind of life the superior people seemed to them to be living. Where this superiority expressed itself also in greater force of arms, as in the Frankish conversions, the argument was irresistible. Where there was no obvious superiority, as in the case of the Britons and their AngloSaxon conquerors, no results were visible.

That our author has not given a larger place to these considerations is perhaps to be explained by the method he has used. His work is divided quite sharply by countries. Beginning, for no clear reason, with Ireland, he passes on to England, France, Italy, the Balkans, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, through the Low Countries to Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, and Russia. This method tends to obscure all chronological unity and sequence. It emphasizes the local and personal or missionary elements and makes difficult any guiding critical attitude toward material. In each country we have, quite naturally, the traditional story of the best-known missionary, as Patrick, Boniface, Methodius, Augustine, and so on, with not very much critical comment. There is enough of the too abundant tales of miraculous events, but this is commendably free from unction or over-emphasis.

The whole effect of the book is scrappy. Chronological references jump back and forth to the reader's confusion. The march of the conversion as a single unifying process in the making of a new European population is not clearly reproduced. The place of Christianity as one among several spiritual, individual, and universal religions competing