Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/54

 NOTES AND QUERIES. tita.ix.iux9.ini. mortality of the best-intentioned persons, he puts in a plea, which every reader of ' N. & Q.' will endorse, for intervention in its behalf by the Ancient Monuments Commission winding up with a severe word for the City Corporation as guardians of such treasures. One of the most delighful of these essays is ' London Out of Bounds.' A red rose was no un- common quit-rent, so that we are not sure that we can reason from it to the superlative beauty of the quondam rose garden of Ely Place but that en- chanted corner has no need of the ghost of a rose- garden to give it romance. It has, among other things, a beadle, who is also a watchman and who represents the authority of the Crown and the proud independence of Ely Place, where the City Police have no power. Mr. Bell is justly scornful of the general ignorance of London, and pokes a little fun at correspondents of ' N. & Q.' for hunting up and down the country for examples of curfew-ringing, and never mentioning either the Gray's Inn curfew or that of the Tower. From the Tower he cannot yet drag himself away : here is a paper about Tower Hill. And AnneBoleyn reappears, a propos of that letter at the British Museum which purports to be hers a copy of hers, that is addressed to the King four days after her arrival at the Tower. ' An Election of Sheriffs ' is an amusing and picturesque description of one of the best survivals of old custom in London. The essays on St. Martin-le- Grand, the Apothecaries' Company and Treasure- houses also deserve a mention. We might instance many others, but we believe enough has been said to whet the appetite of lovers of London for a book which, though it makes no pretensions to being more than a collection of sketches offered as recreation, well sustains its author's reputation both for enthusiasm and for knowledge of London. Portsmouth Parish Church. By Henry T. Lilley and Alfred T. Everitt. (Portsmouth : Char- pentier, 12s. 6d. net.) THE Parish Church of Portsmouth with St. Thomas of Canterbury for patron saint is among the richest of English parish churches in historical associations, and can boast, besides, architectural features of great interest. John de Gisors, about ten years after the Archbishop's murder, gave the Canons of Southwick ground on which to build a Chapel in his honour. The original building was erected between 1185 and 1196, and the chancel and transepts of the pre- sent church contain the chief remains of it. The nave was rebuilt in the late seventeenth century. The most interesting portion of the church be- longs thus to a specially interesting period of English architecture, that of the transition be- tween Norman and Early English, and Ports- mouth has two singular features belonging to it : the double arches of the aisles under each single bay of the chancel and the curiously re- cessed east wall which makes a wide arched niche, within which is a lancet window. The architectural detail of the building ; the heraldry ; the general history ; the biographies of vicars, benefactors and other worthies con- nected with the church and the town, are all treated in a pleasant, lively style which, how- ever, does not conceal the great pains taken in compiling the material. The illustrations are numerous, excellently chosen, and, on the whole, very well reproduced, while literary sources and documents have been copiously drawn upon. In fact Portsmouth Parish Church may now boast of one of the most elaborate monographs that has recently been put together upon any parish church in 'England. The Poems of Robert HerricJc. Edited by F. W. Moorman. (Humphrey Milford, 5s. net.) IN 1915 appeared the library edition of Herrick in the Oxford English Texts, a notice of which will be found at 11 S. xi. 443. Professor Moor- man's death and the war have delayed the pub- lication of this smaller edition, which is the fruit of the same labours as the larger, and intended as a companion, volume. It is addressed to the lover of poetry, not to the professed scholar. It therefore confines itself to the text of 1648, omitting the critical appendix and the discussion of the text, which are important features of the library edition. It also, with few exceptions, omits the ' Epigrams ' of the ' Hesperides.' Both curtailments are well advised ; no one carrying this volume for the pleasure of Herrick' s poetry could wish to burden himself with the ' Epigrams,' and though some attention to textual variants has its place even in the general reader's enjoyment of an author, it is but a subordinate affair and useful chiefly when the poet's work has already grown dear and familiar. The ordinary title page of the 1648 edition is here reproduced, and, as frontispiece, in de- ference to the present enthusiasm for originals, we are also given the frontispiece of that edition, which certainly has no intrinsic merit to re- commend it. The Oxford Edition of Standard Authors is so well known that there is no need to praise it as a series. to ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the name and address of the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers " at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4; corrected proofs to The Editor, ' N. & Q.,' Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4. WHEN answeringl a query, or referring to an article which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses immediately after the exact heading the numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the con- tribution in question is to be found. WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor correspondents are requested to put in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of ' N. & Q.' to which the letter refers.