possessors to look for aid to the English king who lay in their rear,” could not have been written with any clear ideas of either the political or the geographical relations of the places mentioned.  What is meant by the “western coast”?  Not, certainly, the towns on the Somme, which lie in the north-east, nor Normandy, which has indeed a western coast of its own, but cannot be said to form part of the western coast of France.  Nor does Brittany include “the whole western coast,” or even the larger portion of it, while it could not have been “detached from the hold of Lewis,” inasmuch as he had never held it.  As little will that remark apply to the other provinces on the western coast, as these were still in his possession.  Who are meant, therefore, by the “possessors” of this misty coast, and why the English king is said to have lain “in their rear,” can only be conjectured.  It is a small blunder that the French king’s brother is called “Francis” instead of Charles, since we must not suspect Mr. Green of confounding him with the duke of Brittany, who bore the former name.  But the whole passage, in connection with what follows it, indicates that the author has mixed up the state of affairs at two very close, but very distinct, conjunctures.  Many similar instances of defective knowledge might be cited, nor are they confined to this early period.  The remark, in regard to Charles of Austria (the emperor Charles V.), that “the madness of his mother left him next heir of Castille” is nonsense:  he was her heir in any case, while through her madness he became nominally joint, and virtually sole, ruler of the kingdom.  His son Philip had not been “twice a widower” when he married Mary of England, and the assertion that “he owed his victory at Gravelines mainly to the opportune arrival of ten English ships of war” is patriotic, but foolish.  That “Catholicism alone united the burgher of the Netherlands to the noble of Castille, or Milanese and Neapolitan to the Aztec of Mexico and Peru,” would be an incomprehensible statement even if Peru had been inhabited by the Aztecs.  Such errors, however, cannot seriously impair the value of Mr. Green’s work.  Its merits, as regards both matter and form, are solid and varied.  The scale on which it was planned adapts it admirably to the gap which it was intended to fill, and, except in the latter portions, its comparative brevity of treatment excludes neither important facts nor modifying views.  No shorter work could give the reader any adequate knowledge or conceptions in regard to English history, and no longer work is needed to make him fully acquainted with its essential features.