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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. AUG. is,

concise and accurate than Ailred's topo- graphy :

"Ninian selected for himself a site in the place which is now termed Witerna, which, situated on the shore of the ocean, and extending far into the sea on the east, west, and south sides, is closed in by the sea itself, while only on the north is a way open to those who would enter." An exact description of the Isle of Whithorn, to which access can only be had along the narrow isthmus of gravel connecting it with the land on the north ; and in the very posi- tion indicated stands the ruin which local tradition affirms to be the original chapel of A.D. 396. It is not so, of course, but probably a reconstruction dating from the thirteenth century.

Finally, I would ask D. C. L. to note the different terms used by the Scottish Celts at this day to distinguish between houses built of stones without mortar, which they call "black houses," and houses built of stone and lime, which they call "white houses." It was the unfamiliar whiteness of the lime which attracted notice from the Attacott Picts of Galloway, and earned for the new church the name Candida Casa hivit cern= Whithorn. HERBERT MAXWELL.

" PAULES FETE " (10 th S. ii. 87). Away from books I cannot verify my impression, but I think that there was a standard measure of a foot in Old St. Paul's. J. T. F.

Winterton, Doncaster.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Lehose & Sons.) WITH the seventh volume of Hakluyt we begin the moat interesting, valuable, and instructive pages of the work. The opening portion of the volume consists of the description by Edward Wright, the famous mathematician, of the voyage to the Azores of the brave, reckless, and unfor- tunate George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland, a portrait, from the National Portrait Gallery, of whose handsome, rakish face, with the glove of Queen Elizabeth as a badge in his hat, forms a frontis- piece. In this voyage, with all its hardships, Wright himself took part. Next comes Sir Walter Raleigh's *' true report " of the last tight of the Revenge, with the heroic defence and death of his cousin Sir Richard Grenville, after sustaining the assault of fifteen Spanish ships. A portrait of the hero of this unprecedented adventure is also given. Next, with yet one more portrait, comes " the large testimony" of John Huighen van Linschoten concerning the deeds of the Earl of Cumberland, Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir Richard Grinvile, and divers other English captains, with other accounts

of adventure, including the account of "the firing, of the Five Wounds.' " At p. 133 we open kl The
 * hird and last volume of the Principall Naviga-

tions, &c.," and embark upon the painful journey of American exploration, and the heroic and painful search after the fabulous North- West Passage to }he Indies. This part opens with Powel's account of
 * he mythical discoveries of Madoc, the son of Owen

Guined, Prince of North Wales, and continues with the offer of the West Indies by Christopher Columbus to Henry VII. We then arrive at the explorations of Sebastian Cabota, and arguments n favour of the existence of the North -West Passage, the most strongly held of all geogra- phical beliefs or delusions. Three voyages in search of the passage by Martin Frobisher, a like number by John Davis, and other matter concern- ng Newfoundland and "Meta Incognita" make ip the volume, which also gives, in the way of illustration, a map of the world, by Sir Johni Gilbert; a map of the world, 1578; another by- Michael Lock, dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, fronn the Hunterian Library, Glasgow University ; a map> of Meta Incognita ; and one by Edward Wright, 1589, of the Earl of Cumberland's voyage to the Azores, together with a facsimile of a letter dated 3 October, 1585, from John Davis to Walsingham.

As frontispiece to vol. viii. appears a portrait of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to accompany his voyage in 1583 to Newfoundland. Numerous attempts to explore Newfoundland and Canada, including the three voyages of Jacques Cartier, are comprised, and we then come upon the account of attempted settle- ments in Virginia, Florida, c. In addition to the- maps, which are neither less numerous nor less^ interesting than those in the earlier volume, like- nesses are given of a Virginia priest and a native of Florida. In the narrative by Thomas Harriot, servant to Sir Walter Raleigh, of the land of Vir- ginia, we have a vividly interesting account of the iiscovery and use of tobacco, called by the natives " uppowoc," the curative effects of which are described in such fashion as makes us wonder that after its arrival human ailments did not disappear..

Great Masters. Parts XX. and XXL (Heinemann.)- PART XX. of 'Great Masters' marks yet another stage in the progress of the best guide to the great European galleries that has yet seen the light. But four parts more are necessary, if we are rightly informed, to the completion of the work, to each succeeding part of which we have drawn the atten- tion of our readers. Buckingham Palace supplies the first of the four plates in Part XX. This presents a landscape, with cattle, of Albert Cuyp, whom Sir Martin Conway calls " perhaps the most thoroughly local" of Dutch artists. It is a lovely landscape with reposing cattle and peasants. Sir Martin tells us that most of the masterpieces of the artist are, or were, in England. A 'Holy Family' of Filippino Lippi, once in the Palazzo Santangelc- at Naples, where it was ascribed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, is now from the Warren Collection It is beautiful, but rather conventional, and is ascribed to a period of about 1490. John Hoppner is represented by ' The Girl with the Tambourine ' from the collection of Mr. A. De Passe. It is a bright work, the girl's face sparkling with effulgent laughter. Some fault is found with the drawing one leg being said to be longer than the other. A more obvious defect is that the group in the dis- tance seems to belong to another style of art. Last