General Notes.
The pathetic figure of Henry VI, such a contrast to his immediate successors, is portrayed with simplicity and charm, pp. 296-297 of Cheyney’s “Readings.” Speaking of Henry VI naturally suggests the close of the Hundred Years’ War, and tempts me to refer again to Joan of Arc. There is a particularly sympathetic and charming account of her in the November (1909) “St. Nicholas”—an account which more than one “grown up” must have read with delight.
It is well to make clearer than most text-books do just what “benevolences” were. This may be done by making them concrete rather than by definition. The extract from Fabyan’s “Chronicle” in the “Readings,” pp. 300-301, does this excellently. For concreteness, too, Henry VII’s diary quoted at some length in the “Readings” gives an intimate view of Henry, one would hardly expect of a mere account book. It contains a quaint mingling of expenditures of state and the smallest items, from £12,000 “for the king’s wars,” to 2s. “to a woman for a rede rosae.”
The beginnings of printing, and especially the pioneer work of Caxton, are not only of immense interest as an invention, but of immense importance as one of the great mediums of spreading abroad the new ideas which were about to flood Europe. Green, as usual, is very full of interesting information, the gist of which is useful for notes on this subject, pp. 295-299.