Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/27

 io- s. iv. JULY i, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. assume that their readers must needs be in a like condition. The engravings are numerous and almost all good; for several of them, indeed, we may claim a high degree of excellence. There are many armorial shields illustrating the pedigrees, accurate and singularly well drawn, and this we remark is a matter in which many genealogical works of modern days are very defective. Of the pedi- grees themselves we must speak with caution. We have read every one of them carefully, and we are sure that they are much freer from error than most of those we have studied in modern books of reference, where too often the compilations of the heralds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are received as well-nigh infallible authorities. All we can say of those in the book before us is that we have not come upon a single error, unless the implication that Lord Burleigh, the Elizabethan statesman, was of Welsh extraction should turn out to be such. It is a statement often made, and in itself, perhaps, not improbable; but, so far as we have been able to ascertain, it has never been proved in a satisfactory manner. There are excellent views of the exteriors of nearly all the churches. It would seem that the havoc wrought by what is known as church restora- tion has been as fatal in Monmouthshire as else- where ; nevertheless we wish the author had given engravings of some of the more interesting interiors, for notwithstanding the modern warfare against the past some valuable things must, we would fain hope, have been spared. For example, at St. Maughan's the south aisle is divided from the nave by posts of timber which we are told are ancient. If by this is meant that they are the work of the Middle Ages, not the bodging of some recent carpenter, it is a strange arrangement of which we ought to know more. We hear sadly little of old stained glass. Probably the greater part perished long ago, and for this we moderns are not responsible; but destruction, or at least removal, still goes on. At Onastow a window of the year 1540. commemorating Charles Herbert of Troy and Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Sir Gruffydd ap Rhys, had survived in part. What was left was removed only very recently. The list of the mayors of Monmouth begins with Michael Bohun, who ruled the town in 1690. It goes down without a break to the present time. It does not often happen that this civil office is filled by a clergyman. There have been six instances of this kind at Monmouth. The first was John Davis, D.I)., the vicar, who occupied the post in 1777 ; and the last was Thomas Prosser, the lecturer, who was mayor in 1816. In the parish of Llantilio Crossenny there was, and perhaps is still, a small farm known as Cold Harbour. We do nut call to mind that this instance of a name which has caused so much speculation has hitherto been recorded in our pages. Llanfihangel estern Llewern, the meadows of which are now the best land in the parish, was in former days a dangerous swamp. This fact is com- memorated by the name of the parish, which in the first word signifies church of St. Michael, and in the latter "the burning will-o'-the-wisp." There is also a property in the same parish known as Pwll-y-pwca, in English the Hobgoblin's Pool. In Llantilio Crossenny there is a public-house whose name in English is "The Witch's Gate." Such names as these lead one to imagine that if the field names of Monmouthshire were collected by some one who knows Welsh, a valuable contribution might be made to Celtic folk-lore. We must not forget to notice that Mr. Bradney alludes to a diary kept by Walter Powell, who acted as steward to the Earl of Worcester. The- time in which Powell flourished was that of the great Civil War. It contains, we are told, " endless, references to the events of that period." So far as- we know, this MS. has not been published. We- trust it may soon be given to the world. Every- thing that illustrates the troubled time between the calling of the Long Parliament and the Restora- tion should be made public. Assyrian Grammar. By A. H. Sayce, D.D., LL.Dv. Third Edition. (Bagster & Sons.) THE two former impressions of Prof. Sayce's valu- able introduction to the study of Assyrian having, become out of print, he has done well to issue this new edition at a lower price. On comparing it with the last edition, we find that the alterations made are chiefly in the direction of the omission of? matter which the writer thinks is either antiquated or superseded by more recent publications. Th; student will probably miss the useful syllabary which occupied pp. 2-48 of the older editions and the reading lessons, pp. 110-31. Thus the new grammar, divested of the above auxiliaries, con- sists of only vi, 65 pp., as against xvi, 131 pp. The- addition of some notes on the archaic forms of the cuneiform characters, as discovered by ScheiU Thureau-Dangin, and Ball, would have been wel- comed by many. Hitrurgia Anglicana. Edited by Vernon Staley. Part III. (De La More Press.) THE present is the third and concluding portion of the new edition of this well-known work, which has been edited, with large additions and improve- ments, by Provost Staley. It consists, like the two preceding volumes, of a selected number of docu- ments and extracts from miscellaneous books, which- serve to illustrate the ceremonial and polity of the Anglican Church. But this part is of a supple- mentary character, and is devoted to matters sf ritual and discipline, as distinguished from cere- monial, for which no room could oe found in its pre- decessors. A mi in:' the subjects treated are ' Forms of Excommunication,' ' Prayers for the Departed,.' ' Hours of Service ' (in yhich the devoutness of our ancestors makes the laxity of the present age show to disadvantage), and 'The Kalendar of the Book, of Common Prayer.' The enigmatical St. Enurchus,. who is commemorated on 7 September, is shown to be a mere misprint of Euurchus in the 1526 edition, of the York Breviary, which stands for Evurtius. We notice that seventeenth-century churchwardens- were, like some modern newspapers, given to writing. " Maunday " instead of Maundy Thursday (pp. 261- 262). The book, which is set off by the beautiful type of the De La More Press, is enriched with eleven plates and two supplemental indexes to the whole work. MR. HENRY FROWDE is adding to his Oxford' editions of standard English works the ' Tales from Shakespeare,' by Charles and Mary Lamb, with illustrations from the Boy dell Gallery, and the ' Popular Stories' by the Brothers Grimm, reprinted from the first English edition, with the illustra- tions by Cruikshauk so highly praised by Ruskin.