The Medieval Centuries

DENYS HAY

"Is there a more unenviable task than that of writing such a book? The author must travel fast along a well-worn track; he may not stop to explore the by-ways or admire the view; he must miss nothing, and every clause in his report must be succinct and clear-and his reward at the end is to be told by the critics that he has said some things wrong and nothing new.

"Mr. Hay has observed these rules: he never sits back or forgets that he must reach 1500 by the end; he has not evaded the stern austerity of his contract. What he has done is to snatch victory from defeat by making his summary so brilliant that summary itself becomes exciting.

There are no adventitious aids to the reader, no spurious humour, no anecdotes. It is all done by the application to a large and complicated subject of a terse and orderly mind, and of a style so well suited to its theme that (like Fielding's) it even invades the chapter headings. Such books are very difficult to write, yet indispensable, and the author's success is beyond question. But it does not escape observation that he has deployed many other historical virtues apart from terse efficiency. Lacking Mr. Hay's command of precis, the present reviewer must leave the reader to find them for himself, with the

assurance that he will not be disappointed." -CHRISTOPHER N. L. BROOKE, Cambridge Review