The True History of Jack Cade. By Joseph Clayton. (Frank
Palmer. 2s.)—The title is too ambitious. No one can be sure that he knows the "true history" of Jack Cade. At the same time, we are quite ready to weigh Mr. Clayton's arguments, and even to allow that Cade has not been fairly judged. Unsuccessful revolutionaries never are. But Mr. Clayton has not as much as could be desired of the judicial temper. On p. 29, for instance, he proposes to explain what he calls the " simple methods of the small capitalist of the time." He bought, we are told, the peasants' corn-crops, paid them some earnest money, and cheated them out of the balance. Of course there were swindlers then as there are now. But are we to believe that this was the common practice ? Mr. Clayton makes no qualification. He is,we imagine, too keen a politician to be a good historian. Still, his little book is a contribution to history. He has taken pains to study the literature of the subject, and has made a summary of it which cannot fail to be useful to the student.
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