The dearth of serious literature, which has been the chief feature of the English book-market in the publishing season of 1892–3, has visited with especial vigour the domain of History. Some who are well qualified to discuss the causes of the above phenomenon have attributed the falling-off to the vast increase in the production of serial literature. In the last volume of ‘Transactions’ attention was called to this state of affairs, with the remark that ‘it would seem as though the progress of research in this country must, for some time to come at least, be traced in the pages of periodical and serial publications.’ This somewhat bold prediction is apparently in a fair way to be verified, and it may be worth while to examine more closely the nature of the crisis with which we are confronted.