revealed. Those singularly accurate and sensible reports made to the Doge and Senate of Venice, by the ambassadors of the republic, upon their return from the French court, can be read in the collections of Venetian Relations of Tommaseo and Albèri, or as summarized by Ranke and Baschet. The official statements drawn up for the eyes of the public may now be confronted with and tested by the more truthful and unguarded accounts conveyed in cipher to all the foreign courts of Europe. Including the partial collections of despatches heretofore put in print, we possess, regarding many critical events, the narratives and opinions of such apt observers as the envoys of Spain, of the German Empire, of Venice, and of the Pope, of Wurtemberg, Saxony, and the Palatinate. Above all, we have access to the continuous series of letters of the English ambassadors and minor agents, comprising Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Nicholas Throkmorton, Walsingham, Jones, Killigrew, and others, scarcely less skilful in the use of the pen than in the art of diplomacy. This English correspondence, parts of which were printed long ago by Digges, Dr. Patrick Forbes, and Haynes, and other portions by Hardwick, Wright, Tytler-Fraser, etc., can now be read in London, chiefly in the Record Office, and is admirably analyzed in the invaluable "Calendars of State Papers (Foreign Series)," published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. Too much weight can scarcely be given to this source of information and illustration. One of the learned editors enthusiastically remarks concerning a part of it (the letters of Throkmorton[2]): "The historical literature of France, rich as it confessedly is in memoirs and despatches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, possesses (as far as I am aware) no series of papers which can compare either in continuity, fidelity, or minuteness, with the correspondence of Throkmorton.... He had his agents and his spies everywhere throughout France."

Little, if at all, inferior in importance to governmental publications, are the fruits of private research. Several voluminous collections of original documents deserve special mention. Not to speak of the publications of the national French Historical Society, the "Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français" has given to the world, in its monthly Bulletin, so many hitherto inedited documents, besides a great number of excellent monographs, that the volumes of this periodical, now in its twenty-eighth year, constitute in themselves an indispensable library of reference. That admirable biographical work, "La France Protestante," by the brothers Haag (at present in course of revision and enlargement); the "Correspondance des Réformateurs dans les Pays de Langue Française," by M. Herminjard (of which five volumes have come out), a signal instance of what a single indefatigable student can accomplish; the collections of Calvin's Letters, by M. Jules Bonnet; and the magnificent edition of the same reformer's works, by Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, a treasury of learning, rich in surprises for the historical student—all these merit more particular description than can here be given. The biography of Beza, by Professor Baum, the history of the Princes of Condé, by the Due d'Aumale, the correspondence of Frederick the Pious, edited by Kluckholn, etc., contribute a great deal of previously unpublished material. The sumptuous work of M. Douen on Clément Marot and the Huguenot Psalter sheds new light upon an interesting, but until now obscure subject. The writings of Farel and his associates have been rescued from the oblivion to which the extreme scarcity of the extant copies consigned them; and the "Vray Usage de la Croix," the "Sommaire," and the "Manière