Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/243

 ;. V.MARCH io, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

199

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

The History of England from the Earliest Times to the Norman Conquest. By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L. (Longmans & Co.)

WE have here the opening volume of ' The Political History of England,' in twelve volumes now being issued under the direction of Dr. William Hunt and Mr. Reginald Lane Poole. Though the first in order of sequence, covering a period absolutely indefinite, and beginning at the supposed beginning of things, Dr. Hodgkin's volume has been antici- pated in appearance by three volumes belonging to the same series. As but seven pages in all are devoted to the traces in Britain of Paleolithic and Neolithic man, the pre-Celtic stoneworker, and the Celtic workers in bronze and iron, the historic period may be held, perhaps, to begin with the Roman invasion. Thus limited even, it covers something like a thousand years from the advent of Csesar to that of William the Conqueror. As is well said in the opening phrase of the second chapter " Down to the middle of the first century before Christ the British Isles wre scarcely more known to the civilized nations of Southern Europe than the North Pole is to the men of our own day." Something more of credit has been attached to the early discoveries of the geographer and explorer Pvthias but nothing very definite is added to our knowledge of the first century before Christ, save the revelation, by the aid of Sir John Evans the numismatist, of the names of some few British chiefs or kings. Of the various conflicts, or such of them as can be traced, a good account is given ; and the latest results of archaeological research are brought to bear upon the records of Roman occu- pation Of these the most obvious and the most significant consist of Roman labours in road- making. It is shown that the chief highways of the Romans, converging as most of them do to the town anciently named Londinium, coincide "ma remarkable manner with the main lines of our modern railroad communication." It is difficult to draw from this fact any very definite conclusion. In the sepulchral inscriptions which survive it is curious to find altars to gods bearing uncouth Celtic names, proving that "the Roman soldiers, like the Assyrian settlers in Palestine, wished to keep on good terms with the gods of the land." Still more curious is it to find on the bare hillside of Housesteads, in Northumberland, though broken and mutilated, all the emblems of Mithraic worship. On the strength of evidence largely negative it is decided that the Roman occupation was before all things military.

How large a space is occupied in subsequent naees by the religious question needs not be men- tioned, the ecclesiastical records of Bede being largely drawn upon. The fact that all writers of the period were ecclesiastics is of course explana- tory of the importance attached to subjects of the kind. What is the opinion of the author as to the value of the Arthurian legends, regarded from an historical point of view, is shown by the exiguous amount of space (considerably less than a page) which is accorded to them. It is impossible to do justice to the value of the summary that is set before us, and difficult to convey an idea of the amount of information that is furnished.

Ecclesiological Essays. By J. Wickham Legg, F.S.A-

(Moring.)

THE new volume of " The Library of Liturgiology and Ecclesiology " is a collection of essays by one who is expert in all customs and questions among. Anglicans, but many besides theologians will find matter of interest in Dr. Wickham Legg's papers. Some we pass by as dealing with the " anise and cummin " of ceremonial, which seem to the average lay mind of slight importance. Much more inter- esting is the essay on 'Mediaeval Ceremonial,' in which Dr. Legg, himself a "ritualist" in the proper sense of the word, draws attention to the- fact that the further we go back, the greater are the plainness and simplicity observable in the structure and furnishing of the altar. Even in the- thirteenth century, which some have set up as the model of rites and ceremonies, we find no gradin or " super altar," no flower-vases, no cross, no candle- sticks, no "tabernacle," but a plain table covered' with a copious cloth, and everywhere a mediseval- simplicity. The author brings out the curious fact that the official accounts of the coronation of our monarchs, down to that of Queen Victoria, are mere reproductions, with adaptations, of the procession plate which did service for the coronation of James II., with the groom of the vestry carrying a perfuming pan (p. 239). Much curious antiquarian- matter of historical interest is given in the chapter on wedding ceremonies as to the use of the ring and the veil. The book is sufficiently illustrated and beautifully printed.

Horce Siibsecivce. By John Brown, M D. History and Literature of the Crusades. By Heinrich von Sybel. Edited by Lady Duff Gordon. Life of at. Columba. By St. Adam nan. Translated by Wentworth Huyshe. Words on Wellington. By- Sir William Fraser, Bart. The Naturalist on the- Amazons. By Henry Walter Bates. (Routledge. & Sons )

A CONSPICUOUS addition is made by these volumes; to " The New Universal Library " of Messrs. Routledge, in praise of which we have spoken very recently. In some respects, indeed, the series has changed character and purpose. At the outset it seemed virtually confined to the masterpieces of a generation ago works which were the delight and the proud possession of our fathers, and by the- simple passage of time had outlived all question of. : copyright and become accessible to the general, public. To this class the best of the volumes be-, long, but other works, involving new and important labours on the part of living men, and copyright, consequently themselves, have been added. The first class includes what we consider the best of the later additions. ' Horse Subsecivse' is one of the most charming books of the last half century, and the author of ' Rab and his Friends ' may almost be. regarded as an English Oliver Wendell Holmes. The first series only of the ' Horce Subsecivaa ' have- as yet been given. It contains the dog stories or descriptions from ' Rab and his Friends ' to ' The Mystery of Black and Tan,' together with essays such as ' With Brains, Sir,' 'Notes on Art,' criti- cisms of Arthur H. Hallam, Henry Vaughan the Silurist, &c. For a second series we shall wait with, some impatience, trusting that courage will be found to give us that fine and, so far as we know, un- reprinted sketch ' The Kye was Coot ' (we speak from memory). In the same class we may place
 * The Naturalist on the Amazons,' a work first