members of a Royal Commission. But, although there is certainly something to be said in favour of a State department, or at least of a new Record Commission, it is only fair to remember that the existing administration of the archives dates from an early period of the history of this country; and, like other survivals of our ancient constitution, it should not be incapable of responding to the requirements of modern times.

The existing powers of the Master of the Rolls, as the statutory custodian of the national archives, if they were duly enforced, would probably suffice not only for the adequate preservation, arrangement, and production of the records already placed under his charge, but also for the recovery of those documents that have not yet been transferred to the repository. How great and far-reaching these powers are will appear from a perusal of the Public Record Office Act of 1838. This measure appears to have contemplated the ultimate transfer of every official document more than twenty years old to the Master's custody. Moreover, since it was wholly impracticable to include all the existing repositories within the immediate operation of the Act, powers were expressly given for dealing with the residue under an Order in Council. This order was eventually issued on March 5, 1852, thus completing the provisions of the Act of 1838. On this showing, therefore, every official document down to the year 1889 is presumably a public record, and is under the 'charge and superintendence' of the Master of the Rolls. It is true that both the Act of Parliament and the Order in Council have been officially interpreted in a permissive sense, and that some temporary saving clauses in the Act itself have been gratuitously extended to the government departments at large. But a permissive reading of the Act cannot be reconciled with the wording of the Order in Council; and, in any case, it is significant that this beneficial construction' has been equally applied to cases in which the express direction of the Act has remained a dead letter.

The above arbitrary interpretation of the reforming Act of 1838 is probably responsible for the loose and dangerous provisions of the Act of 1877 authorising the destruction of superfluous records. It is certainly unfortunate that this amending Act should have recognised Vol. 212.-No. 422.

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the paramount control of departments which must be held responsible for the serious losses sustained by the records in their charge. At the same time it is not suggested that those departments have shown a very strong inclination to assert their proprietary rights. Without any special aptitude for the custody of historical documents of great importance, they have been content to acquiesce in the official theory by which the plain intention of the Act of 1838 has been set at naught. It is absolutely essential, therefore, that this illusory departmental custody should be forth with set aside, and that effectual steps should be taken to place all the outstanding official documents which fall within the purview of the Public Record Office Act under a responsible custodian.

This is no trifling matter, at least for the historical student of the future. We have no hesitation in asserting that, if an official return could be compiled of all the public documents that have remained out of official custody since the year 1838, when their status as public records was explicitly decreed by Act of Parliament, our historians would be equally appalled by the risks that have been incurred and by the actual losses that have been sustained. Moreover, such a return would necessarily include documents that have been lost to sight from a date long anterior to that of the Act in question. When the arsenals and dockyards of this country, the ports and other local repositories, have yielded up their contents to swell the trouvaille of the vaults and garrets of the metropolitan departments, many gaps in the official inventories may be closed, and many details of our political and fiscal history will need to be revised.

The Act of 1838 may thus be regarded as furnishing suitable directions for the custody of the archives. It does not, however, indicate with sufficient clearness the right of free access to the documents which are to be henceforth regarded as 'public records.' Doubtless the cause of this reticence or evasion is to be found in the notorious circumstance that Parliament, while raising the neglected archives to the dignity of a national department, had not at that time the means to make any adequate provision for an official establishment. Thus, the old fee-system was tacitly continued down to the

year 1858; but, although a declaratory section might well be added to the Act in order to vindicate its very title, means have long since been found to hold the system of fees in strict abeyance. Indeed, in respect of facilities for the inspection of the records, the rules and regulations made from time to time by the Master of the Rolls will apparently suffice for every purpose. If we may assume, therefore, that a slight amendment of the Public Record Office Act of 1838 would secure the transfer of all outstanding official documents to the custody of the Master of the Rolls, the existing departmental authorities might be trusted to accomplish in due course the remaining desiderata of historical students.

Of these the question next in importance to the concentration of the records and free access to the same under reasonable conditions is naturally that of a sufficient indication of their contents. The cry for inventories is heard to-day all over Europe; and it is raised not only by the rank and file of historical workers, but also by the ablest modern writers on historical method. We note with satisfaction the great efforts that have been recently made in this direction by the present Deputy Keeper; but the arrears of fifty years cannot be overtaken in fifteen. Again, something more than a perfunctory list is now required to satisfy the critical demands of local antiquaries and foreign experts; and the inventory of the future must aspire to a standard in respect of classification and description that was never contemplated by an earlier official régime. Such a list, in addition to an explanation of the principle of classification adopted, should preserve every indication of the earlier systems employed, together with a reference to related documents which have been destroyed or are not now preserved in official custody. It should also clearly express the form and extent of every document, and should note the existence of any mutilation.

It will be seen that the above requirements would involve the task of identifying the State documents that have found their way into public and private libraries. In order to accomplish this task it does not necessarily follow that we must first prepare a comprehensive 'Guide to these official estrays. In the case of the larger public libraries, a descriptive catalogue is already

available; and with this assistance the work of identification should be fairly simple. It will be remembered that similar identifications have been recently attempted, with remarkable success, in the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. As we have seen, this coordination of our national archives should be supplemented by the skilful investigations of a foreign intelligence department organised on the lines of the continental and American archive missions.' Such an organisation would not only promote the long neglected comparative study of European history, but would serve as a useful bureau of information for the assistance of English students in every capital of Europe.

to.

These operations are not beyond the powers of the authorities of the Record Office, and perhaps they might add to them the advisory direction of the training and examination of archivists; while the desirability of consulting professed historians on the subject of the destruction of superfluous documents has been already referred At the same time some such consultation may also be advantageously held in respect of record publications. Finally, the recognition and encouragement by the State of the extensive but often ill-directed schemes of publica tion from the resources of learned and local societies is a matter deserving consideration; and the new British Academy is well qualified to act as an intermediary between the Government and these isolated bodies. As it is, instances will occur to the reader in which the privately-printed description of a class of records or local muniments dispenses with the need for an official inventory.

The existence of certain defects in our meritorious but antiquated archive system need, after all, give rise to no feeling of despondency or irritation. It must be remem bered that the scientific study of this subject abroad was due to causes that have never operated in this country, The sense of national responsibility for the well-being of these priceless possessions has undoubtedly tended to the advancement of more than one branch of learning. It would almost seem that the experiment might be tried by ourselves, salvo jure cujuscumque, as the old lawbooks remind us,

Art. 3.-JACOPONE DA TODI: THE POET OF THE 'STABAT MATER."

1. Bibliographical Notes on the Poems of the Blessed Jacopone da Todi, and on the writers who speak of him. By Eduard Boehmer. Romanische Studien, 1871.

2 Jacobone da Todi, il Giullare di Dio del secolo xiii. By Alessandro d'Ancona. Nuova Antologia, vol. xxi, 1880. 3. Jacopone da Todi; lo' Stabat Mater 'e' Donna del Paradiso. Studio su nuovi codici. By Annibale Tenneroni. Todi, 1887.

4. A Milanese Codex of the Lauds of Brother Jacobone. Edited by Francesco Novati. Franciscan Miscellanies,' i-iii, 1889.

5. Les Poètes Franciscains en Italie au 13me Siècle. By A. F. Ozanam. Paris, 1852.

6. Jacopone da Todi. By Cav. Piero Alvi (Arcidiacono di Todi). Todi, 1906.

1. Fra Jacopone da Todi e l'Epopea Francescana.

Biordo Brugnoli. 1907.

By

TODI's peace and poverty are threatened at last. Sleepers hewn and piled for miles along a line planned from Perugia are ready for the coming railway; but for a year or two Todi will remain a haunt of ancient leisure, a city which welcomes her rare guests with enthusiasm, escorts them up and down her steep streets, and speeds them, not without a suggestion of largesse for her hospitality.

A slight acquaintance with her medieval traditions prevailed over indolence, procrastination, and parsimony, and induced me to share a friend's carriage from Assisi ross the Spoletan valley and over the pass below Montefalco into the valley of the Naja and the Rio. We started at six o'clock in the morning in a shabby old chariot, which, six years earlier, had taken me to all the Franciscan shrines within reach, and whose dislocations and tatters the intervening time had only emphasised. The May morning was cool enough at first to counsel Wraps, but it developed soon into midsummer heat. Our first stage was Cannara, a quaint walled village on the Umbrian plain, whose narrow streets and many-storeyed buildings suggest a section of a city rather than a townlet