The Correspondence of Lieut.-Governor John Graves Simcoe, with Allied Documents relating to his Administration of the Government of Upper Canada. Collected and edited by Brig.-Gen. E. A. Cruikshank, LL.D., F.R.S.C. Vol. III., 1794-1795. (Toronto, Ontario Historical Society, 1925, pp. xi, 404.) This volume continues General Cruikshank's series, running to the end of April, 1795. It contains some 350 letters or documents, of which a hundred are letters of Simcoe. We have only to repeat what was said in our review of the first two volumes (XXX. 869), that the range of allied documents, outside of the actual correspondence of Simcoe, and sometimes taken over from texts already printed, seems somewhat uncertain, but that the volume is an important contribution, not only to knowledge of the early administrative history of Upper Canada, but especially to that of the relations between Upper Canada and the United States.

The Unreformed Senate of Canada. By Robert A. Mackay, Assistant Professor of Government, Cornell University. (London, Oxford University Press, 1926, pp. xvi, 284, 15 s.) The Senate of Canada has not always been treated with the respectful attention which is accorded it by Professor Mackay. Though styling it "unreformed" he pays it the compliment of studying its history and operation with exhaustive care. Obviously the problems presented by a second chamber are a hard nut for those to crack who endeavor to shape a federal constitution for a democratic population inhabiting a vast, sparsely settled country. In Canada the difficulties were enhanced by the presence of contrasted races and religion. Confronted less by a theory than by numerous and complicated conditions, the constitution-builders of 1867 created a federal senate in which the government of the day fills vacancies by conferring a lifeappointment upon its own friends. In a world where every second chamber is a target for malicious pleasantries, a body thus constituted can not escape criticism.

Professor Mackay has no sympathy with the view that Canada should get rid of her second chamber. Such a suggestion he considers to be purely visionary in view of the veto which would be placed upon it by Quebec, supported by the Maritime Provinces. Quite apart from this very practical consideration, he finds much in the bi-cameral system to merit approval and perpetuation. No less emphatic, however, is his declaration that the Senate stands in need of reform. "Undoubtedly its greatest defect", he says, "is that in a democratic community, governed by representative institutions and wedded to theories of popular government, the Senate rests upon no popular foundation." The fact that in its membership there is a preponderating number of old, or elderly, men, he does not look upon as a necessary evil. If senators rest on their laurels "the reason is less the impotence of age than the lotus-land atmosphere apparent in every upper chamber endowed with dignity and bereft of political power". Professor Mackay also comments upon the

lopsided aspect which the Senate presents after one party has been in a position to fill vacancies throughout a considerable period. Here his view is that, though much of its work is non-partizan in character, its usefulness is seriously limited by a condition which tends to check government measures of a questionable character.

For many readers the most interesting part of this book will be found in its concluding pages (pp. 223-229). Here Professor Mackay presents a plan of reform which is designed to exclude from the Senate those who are possessed of insufficient merit. It is in the nature of things that any plan of this character should be rather complicated-the more so since the fixed conditions under which federal government is conducted in Canada do not favor simplicity. But Professor Mackay's proposals deserve the respectful attention which should be given to any suggestion put forth by one who has studied with painstaking and intelligent care the institution. which he seeks to improve. He has written an excellent book, but we fear that the Senate is not likely to be reformed for some time. Mr. Mackenzie King has just been returned with a real working majority which should keep him in office for five years. Under such circumstances, and with the power of making numerous highly coveted appointments, he will differ from preceding premiers in Canada if he does not agree that the Senate "does nothing in particular, and does it very well".

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Compiled by W. Stewart Wallace, M.A., Librarian of the University of Toronto. (Toronto, Macmillan Company, 1926, pp. 429.) Mr. Wallace has carefully prepared an admirable volume, which differs from preceding dictionaries of Canadian biography in that it includes no living persons; it therefore includes no flattery. It seems also to have been prepared with much more pains than its predecessors, and, so far as immediate and somewhat rapid examination will show, it seems to be remarkably correct. About two thousand biographies are included. The articles therefore are brief-not as brief as those in a Who's Who, but briefer than those in the British Dictionary of National Biography. The plan of the articles is in general like that of the shorter articles in the D. N. B., but there is, of necessity, almost no characterization. As a work of reference for biographical details it will certainly take very high rank. References to sources of information are given.

CORRECTIONS

THE EDITOR OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW.

Sir: The introduction to the extract from the "Recollections of the Marquis of Tweeddale ", printed in the American Historical Review for October, 1926, states that "he had then forgotten to mention the fact that he was himself taken prisoner at the battle of Lundy's Lane", etc. The Marquis of Tweeddale was not present at the battle of Lundy's Lane for he was then in hospital at Montreal, having been severely wounded at Chippawa, twenty days before. Nor was he taken at any other time. The author of the sketch of his life in the D. N. B., who quotes the London Times as one of his authorities, states that the Marquis was taken prisoner in 1813, but he did not come to Canada until May, 1814.

The "Recollections" state that "On Guest's Island there were four pieces of artillery playing upon us". A note suggests that Goat Island is meant, but this is out of the question as Goat Island is on the opposite side of the river on the brink of Niagara Falls, more than three miles distant.

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The editor remarks that he has not found this statement made elsewhere. It is corroborated to some extent in a MS. account of the battle of Chippawa by Lieutenant James Driscoll, also of the 100th Regiment, which says, A couple of howitzers placed on an island a short distance from the shore covered their right and threatened to exterminate the left of the British line ", and later on, “The two guns on the island had much cut up our left".

If there was an island in the river there then it has disappeared, but it seems more probable that these guns were posted on the point formed by the junction of Street's Creek with the Niagara River, which may have had the appearance of an island.

Both Lord Tweeddale's and Driscoll's narratives were written long after the event.

In his kind review of volume III. of the Cambridge Ancient History Professor Rogers makes certain references to my own contribution which -quite unintentionally-are based upon a misapprehension so serious that I trust you will permit me to correct it. My view of the late date of Deuteronomy in its present form-the italicized words are essential-

is not due to the recent work of Professor Hölscher, although I am, of course, acquainted with it. My indebtedness goes back much earlier, to the pioneering articles of my esteemed teacher Professor Kennett in the Journal of Theological Studies, 1905-1906. This view and others which I have developed in the Cambridge Ancient History were already adumbrated by me half-a-dozen years later in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and, so far as I have noticed, are not affected by the objections brought against Professor Hölscher's work. That there are "exilic" (sixth century) passages in Deuteronomy has long been recognized, for example, by Professor George Foote Moore in 1899 (Encyc. Biblica, vols. 1087, 1089); and my own view is that the book— which I should never describe as not prophetic but priestly" (as Professor Rogers interprets me)—is a composite one, fully meriting his adjective "glorious ", but manifesting in its later tendencies the "beginning of legalism". It is quite true, as he says, that "the conclusions of 125 years of criticism" are being reconsidered; but Biblical criticism is a progressive science, and both the external evidence and the new studies of the Biblical evidence itself are, I am persuaded, leading to a new position which cuts across old "critical" and "anti-critical" divisions, and supersedes various old controversies between conservative " and "radical" writers.

Yours, etc.

STANLEY COOK.

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND.

On page 156 of our last number, in Professor A. J. Barnouw's review of Dr. Bense's Anglo-Dutch Relations, appears, by an error for which he is not responsible, a sentence reading as follows: "If that is true—and no student of Germanic philology will deny it-it must be equally impossible to prove that Middle English words of supposed Low Dutch origin are not part of the Old English literature, which, in its poetry, employs an artificial diction and, in its prose, is strongly influenced by Latin models." The reading should be: "If that is true-and no student of Germanic philology will deny it-it must be equally impossible to prove that Middle English words of supposed Low Dutch origin are not part of the Old English inheritance. The vocabulary of the Anglo-Saxon's speech must have been different in many ways from that recorded in Old English literature, which, in its poetry, employs an artificial diction and, in its prose, is strongly influenced by Latin models."

A note from the publishers of Krause's Geschichte Ostasiens, Messrs. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, of Göttingen, reviewed in our last number, states that the reviewer's indication that one of the maps in that work has been reversed in photographic reproduction" is erroneous. "The fact is", they say, "that in this map, as in most [early] medieval maps, south is above and north below."

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXXII.-26.

HISTORICAL NEWS

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Just before publication of this number of the Review, the Association has held its forty-first annual meeting at Rochester, N. Y., December 28-30. In addition to the features of the programme which have already been mentioned in these pages, others around which interest will centre are the luncheon at which reports will be made concerning the progress of the canvass for additional endowment, with speeches intended to promote and encourage the work yet to be done during the remainder of the winter; the discussion concerning the continuance of productivity after the winning of the doctor's degree; and the musicale offered at the Eastman School of Music. The circular sent out by the Committee on Nominations nominates Henry Osborn Taylor for president, James H. Breasted for first vice-president, James Harvey Robinson for second vice-president, Messrs. Bassett and Moore for secretary and treasurer, respectively, and the following for membership in the Executive Council: William K. Boyd, Nellie Neilson, Albert J. Beveridge, Laurence W. Larson, Frank M. Anderson, James T. Adams, Dwight W. Morrow, and Payson J. Treat. For the succeeding Committee on Nominations the present committee rames Solon J. Buck (chairman), Charles W. Hackett, Percy A. Martin, Louis M. Sears, and Lucy E. Textor. The Council expects to recommend that the meeting of December, 1927, shall be held in Indianapolis, and names Dr. Christopher B. Coleman as chairman of the Committee on the Programme.

The Executive Council held a two-day meeting in New York, November 26 and 27, at which reports from committees were considered, and some new actions taken in contemplation of enlargement of activities made possible by increased endowment. A "revolving fund" of $25,000 having been contributed by the Carnegie Corporation, for the publication of valuable historical books whose success may be too slow to ensure the favor of a publisher, the Council appointed for the work of administering this fund a new committee consisting of Messrs. Edward P. Cheyney, George L. Burr, Samuel E. Morison, Bernadotte E. Schmitt, and the president of the Association ex officio. We are obliged to state, with much regret and some surprise, that the committee on the George Louis Beer prize announced that no manuscripts had been submitted in competition for that award. Provision was made for printing, before the Rochester meeting, of the reports of the Committee on Publications, the Committee on Membership, the Committee on History Teaching in the Schools, the delegates to the American Council of Learned Societies, the representative of the Association in the International Committee of Historical Sciences,

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