found in modern Armenian, which all scholars who know anything of Asiatic languages recognise as a purely Aryan tongue of European derivation. Its vocabulary and grammar alike are quite different from the Akkadian, and it is clear that inscriptions legible in the one cannot be read in the other. Thirdly, that the Hittites used an alphabet (with many picture emblems interspersed) and not a syllabary. In this he looks rather to Egypt than to Babylon for the key; but the idea is not in accord with the evidence afforded by the Cypriotic character, nor was the Egyptian alphabet ever really adopted in Asia. Finally, Dr. Jensen and Dr. Hommel entirely ignore the sounds derivable, as above explained, from the later Cypriotic syllabary, and suggest others which are entirely arbitrary, and not based on any particular language or on any comparative study. They as a rule disagree entirely between themselves, and also with Dr. Sayce, as to what these sounds were; and they have made no proper study of the terminations and other common combinations, which should first be treated by a student of such enigmas. They have also been misled by bad copies of the texts, and they learnedly discuss emblems which do not occur at all. The supposed Armenian and Georgian explanations may thus be dismissed, especially as, during the last four years, these scholars have proved unable to explain the new letters found by M. Chantre, which were at once perceived to be in the so-called 'Hittite' language.

This question will, however, probably still remain controversial until it is settled by the recovery of a long bilingual, giving the Hittite side by side with some known. character-whether in cuneiform script or in Egyptian, Phoenician, or even Greek. Should M. Chantre be inclined for further exploration, there remain two sites where serious excavations might lead to the desired information being obtained. The first of these is Carchemish (now Jerablus) on the Euphrates-the border city between the Hittites and Assyrians, which has already produced fine Hittite remains, but has never been properly explored. The second is Malatiya (in the ancient Melitene region), west of the Upper Euphrates. This site also is on the borders of two civilisations, and a place where bilinguals are very likely to be found. If he has time and opportunity to explore these sites, as he has explored Cappadocia, M. Chantre may yet further add to our knowledge of an almost forgotten civilisation.

ART. VII.-1. Life and Campaigns of Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven. By C. S. TERRY, M.A., University Lecturer in History, University of Aberdeen. London, New York, and Bombay: 1899.

2. Rupert Prince Palatine. By EVA SCOTT, late Scholar of Somerville College, Oxford. London: 1899.

A LIFE of Rupert of the Rhine and a Life of Alexander Leslie both appeared not many months ago. Although the works are entirely independent and have each an interest different in nature from the interest of the other, any one who compares the stories of these two men, now told again with new incident, will draw some old inferences seen clearer in a fresh light concerning that epoch of many features, which as it recedes into the depths of time, year by year and century by century, only comes nearer to our imagination and our understanding. Both Miss Scott and Mr. Terry have gone deep into the historical materials of the Civil War, and have put into an easily attainable form some important and much curious matter. Both are to be corgratulated on their adoption of that habit, excellent in historians of a time when the English language was still pure and strong, of frequently setting in their own text, and even in the middle of their own sentences, some phrase from a contemporary letter or narrative that bears in its turn and cadence the charm of a vanished century. Often ungrammatical, and often involved almost to the limit of comprehension, but never flat or vulgar, was the language spoken and written by the men who slew each other in the Civil War. The dull incident lives and the unimportant event gains a personal interest, when the modern historian calls on the actor or eye-witness for a few brief and telling words where they are most wanted.

Miss Scott, whose subject and material very properly aroused in her the hope of making her book delightful to read, has in the matter of quotation gone no further than this excellent practice, and has refrained from printing letters and documents wholesale in such a way as to interrupt the course of her story. She has had the good sense to realise that the chief deficiency in existing literature was some true account of Rupert as a man, that there was material at hand to supply the want, and that she was well suited to carry out the work. She has rightly sacrificed the discussion of military and political problems,

except when they particularly illustrate Rupert's character and abilities. This method is specially desirable in the biography of one who was before everything else a human being, one to whom life was a game not of parties but of persons. The treatment of the subject from this essentially correct point of view actually throws back more light on the public history of the period than if the task of the biographer had been half sacrificed, as it so often is, to that of the military or political historian.

Mr. Terry, on the other hand, finding that the more scanty and less attractive materials for a Life of Alexander Leslie must of necessity make the book a detailed account of the campaigns he fought and the military business he transacted, has printed long papers and despatches. He has produced a work chiefly valuable as a collection of facts and documents, put together in the form of a biography of one whose real life' can never be written. The true history of Leslie is the history of the cause with which he so wholly identified himself that his personality did little to affect its nature, though his abilities did much to maintain its fortune.

The daily increasing importance which under modern conditions of life the Scotch character and intellect are assuming in every quarter of the globe, gives a great place in the history of mankind to the incident slightingly known as the First Bishops' War. In these years 1638 and 1639 the Scotch people, by a voluntary effort of unusual heroism, saved from imminent danger of suppression the peculiar type of nationality which they were then slowly building up by institutions no less peculiar. Although the question whether Laud's Prayer-book should or should not be used may seem of inferior importance to the question whether Edward I. should or should not make Scotland an appendage to the English crown, the real issue was in each case much the same. National characteristics were in the seventeenth century more than in any later age, and in Scotland more than in any other country, formed by religion and by the many influences and institutions that were then included in its sphere. The difference between the Prayer-book service and that series of metaphysical discourses which a Southerner seldom voluntarily attends a second time, is the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual difference between Englishmen and Scotchmen, between Mr. Kipling's Gloster and M'Andrew among common men, between Ruskin and Carlyle among the uncommon.

High as was the stake for which the Scotch rebels played,

the risk of losing was at the outset proportionately great. The inability of our generation to imagine the Scotch as anything but Calvinistic, combines subtly with the comic elements of the story to make the whole affair seem to have been what it was not, a sort of holiday revolution carried to its inevitable issue with joyful uproar and throwing of stools. But, in fact, it was a very desperate business. It required no ordinary courage for a country so thinly peopled and so poor to levy war on the strength and wealth of England. For the Scotch, when they first defied Charles, had no hope of any rising behind his back; they had no definite communications with the English parliamentary party, which had for ten years been dispersed, without leaders and without organisation. And, in fact, during the first Bishops' war there was no stir among the English Puritans. Throughout that agony of suspense and danger on the Tweed, Pym and Hampden remained at home among their neighbours, and Cromwell went about his daily business in the Fens. We knew not then,' wrote Baillie the Covenanter, even when Charles's first troubles had begun at York, the estate of the English 'affairs; there was no intercourse betwixt us; our 'intelligence had much failed us. We heard of nought but of all England's arming.' On such terms there did not seem much likelihood of the smaller nation being able to resist. The Scotch could not encourage themselves by repeating any such pleasing national tradition as that one Scotchman was worth three Englishmen, for the field of Flodden and the conquest of the country after Pinkie were memories which border raids had done nothing to efface. Experience taught that England had been able to subdue Scotland even when she had a king and government of her own. Was it to be expected that she would fare better under an improvised committee of rebels, not yet masters of the principal fortresses in the kingdom, who might at the first check be left stranded by a loyalist reaction, or at the first success break into a fierce faction fight among themselves, as had always been the nature of the Scotch nobility?

The nobles of Scotland had, for very good reasons of their own, put themselves at the head of the movement, with scarcely less enthusiasm than the peasants, townspeople, and lower clergy. They had been ousted from their political position as advisers to the Scotch crown, by the bishops whom James and Charles had raised, at first to preside over the Church, but latterly to hold the chief offices

des was no

ady made to aption in that in their possesolitical and social een brought up, like stic doctrine and wordone little to suppress, the new Prayer-book. of upbringing in that ty may be judged by comspirit which they showed with the savage violence and

except when they particularly illustrate and abilities. This method is spebiography of one who was before. being, one to whom life was a g persons. The treatment of the s correct point of view actually thr public history of the period t grapher had been half sacrifice the military or political histo Mr. Terry, on the other ha and less attractive material must of necessity make th campaigns he fought and has printed long papers a work chiefly valuab ments, put together in real life' can never is the history of the himself that his per though his abilities The daily incr conditions of life assuming in ever in the history of as the First Bisl the Scotch peop saved from i

type of nation by institution whether Lau may seem o Edward I. s

to the Eng the same. century mo

than in an many influ its spher vice and Southern the out differenc Mr. Kip between

High

grandfathers had repeatedly and half enlisted the sympathy

Mary

Stuart. But the Scotch lesser degree, the same mad one of their own number as to awaken hereditary feuds

**ALEN WE t over their heads a burgher

reputation would merely be to

On the other hand, without ingly obey, no army could be ether. The Scotch enterprise are gone to ruin but for the

zan who curiously combined all

fr

r this very peculiar post, which ht have filled less well.

gentle birth and profession, but ad no hereditary pretensions. His

record of his services in the camp was one of the first generals in the Having been in foreign employment ask from his twenty-fourth to his Jay to have bad in Scotland no con

enemies,

personal or public.*

*g man to unite the quarrelsome leaders der his authority, provided his talents *** as suitable as his position in the world. ** 2. od Rothes to raise troops in Fife; Rothes was ang obtain the post of general. But there is no proof sus and his position among the Covenanters may have » mare mention would have been made of it in Baillie or th, if the connexion had involved further political