Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/99

 10 s. x. JULY 25, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Nunburnholme : its History and Antiquities. By the Rev. M. C. F. Morris. (York, John Sampson ; London, Henry Frowde.)

NUNBURNHOLME is not a noteworthy place among the villages of Yorkshire, but those who read Mr. Morris's account thereof will, we are sure, give his work a high place among the local histories of Northern England. The little town, as the inhabitants fondly, and with complete accuracy, call it, stands on the western edge of the East Riding Wolds, at the point where they meet' "the far-stretching Vale of York."

The introductory chapter deals with the geology of the district ; then we are introduced to Neolithic man, of whose burial mounds and implements we have a good account. What language these remote predecessors of ours spoke is unknown, and will most likely remain so, but it is not improbable that there were several tongues struggling for the mastery, for the skulls that have been found in the barrows unmistakably indicate more than one line of descent, some being long and narrow, others broad and round, the latter seemingly belonging to the stronger race, while intermediate types, indi- cating racial crossing, form the greater number. This blending of races probably occurred before the tribes settled on the Yorkshire Wolds, and it may well be before they arrived in any part of what we now call England.

Hardly anything is known of Nunburnholme before the Norman Conquest. Its history begins, in fact, with the Domesday survey (1086), though we are justified in assuming that it was inhabited at a far earlier period.

Mr. Morris gives an interesting sketch of the early history of the manor. Early manorial history is in many cases very difficult to elucidate. We cannot, therefore, take upon ourselves the responsibility of contradicting him, but the state- ment "that the early grouping of parishes fol- lowed manorial lines is, we think, far top wide. It seems certain that in many parts of the kingdom the parish was an earlier division than the manor. In a county which adjoins Yorkshire we know a parish within the boundaries of which were two complete manors and parts at least of two others. It is well to remark that though knowledge has increased in recent days, the term "manor," as used in pre-Norman days, is by no means free from difficulty. Mr. Morris has made out a satisfactory list of the Lords of Nunburnholme from Forne, who may have held it previous to the Norman time. He may have been, and probably was, ancestor of the Greystockes, who held it for many generations ; afterwards it passed to the Dacres and Howards, then by sale in 1765 to the Duke of Devonshire. In 1847 it was again sold to George Hudson, "the Railway King"; and when mis- fortunes fell upon that rash speculator it passed to Albert Denison, first Lord Londesborough, by whose representative it is still held. The only doubtful points in this long list are between 1086 and 1209.

The church is an interesting fabric which has not suffered much from restoration. The evils it under- went were mainly at the time of the Reformation

and from the utter neglect which fell upon it in the eighteenth century. Now all has been done to pre- serve what is left and make it suitable for worship. The dedication was originally that of All Hallows, as is proved by ancient wills ; but in later time it became known as St. Jamfes's, under which title it appears in Ecton's ' Thesaurus ' and Bacon's 'Liber Regis.'

In the churchyard are the remains of an early cross which were found in a ruinous porch. Mr. Morris reproduces a description of this interesting relic written by the expert hand of Romilly Allen. Though it is in fair preservation, it seems impos- sible to interpret the meaning of the greater part of the sculptures.

The Benedictine convent of St. Mary can never have been a house of much importance. It fell with the lesser monasteries. Its founder has not been identified. The author thinks that it may have been one of the ancestors of the house of Greystocke.

There is a very good comment on the dialect of the Nunburnholme neighbourhood, which would make a profitable study for those who still treat with contempt the folk-speech of their forefathers,

Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin, now in the Botany School, Cambridge. Compiled by H. W. Rutherford, of the University Library. With an Introduction by Francis Darwin. (Cam- bridge, University Press.)

THE frequency and rapidity with which the libraries of the illustrious dead are sold ("dispersed" is, we- believe, an expressive trade term) is distressing. Occasionally, however, a famous collection such as that of the late Lord Acton remains intact and in good hands. This book records the transfer of ih& whole of Darwin's library by his distinguished son, Mr. Francis Darwin, to the Botany School of Cambridge for the use of the University an admirable bequest which will be always available- for reference.

The Introduction supplies several interesting details of Darwin's books. He hardly ever had a book bound, and the sixth edition of Lyell's- 4 Elements,' which he found too heavy to be read with comfort, he converted into two volumes by cutting it in half. This short way with bulky tomes might be brought with advantage to the notice of some publishers who are responsible for heavy single volumes. The hands of the present reviewer, for instance, have been before now benumbed by the effort of holding Strasburger's ' Textbook of Botany 'an admirable volume, but not a light one in any sense of the word. Much of Darwin s reading was in German, and he had his difficulties with that scientific tongue. There are- numerous pencil annotations by him. Patrick Matthew's book on ' Naval Timber and Arbori- culture,' 1831, was first introduced to Darwin by long extracts published in The Gardeners' Chronicle of 7 April, 1860, by the author. As regards this, book we read the following pronouncement here : "Matthew claimed quite justly that he put forward the theory of Natural Selection long before- ' The Origin of Species ' was published. It is certainly surprising to find in a book dated 1831 the expression ' natural process of selection among- plants.'"

It is pointed out that Darwin's library is well placed in the Botany School, since it was a Professor of Botany at Cambridge, Henslow, who "determined