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s. iii. MA*. *, m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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seriously recommended "a hair of the dog that bit you " to be applied to the wound. An owl baked and mixed with horse grease constitutes a remedy for the gout. To make a man (or a woman) sleep three days, all you have to do is to give him in his pottage the gall of a hare, and he shall not wake until his face is washed with vinegar. In these few extracts we have not used the old spelling or the signs for th, &c. The forms of orthography adopted have, however, special interest, and the work is a valuable gift to students of Middle English. The spelling is more than eccentric, and among the explanatory notes of Prof. Skeat are many which point out errors, such as "motfelon" for matfelon, "lomke" for lemke, i.e., brooklime, &c. Many of the forms employed are unfamiliar, and without the assistance rendered by the Professor a portion of the volume would be not easily intelligible. Prof. Skeat puts the date of the opening MS. before 1400, and holds it from internal evidence to have been written in the south of England, most likely in Sussex, Surrey, or Hampshire, but not in Kent. The scribe responsible for the English portion was of English birth, and was equally conversant with Anglo-French and English, though he never quite succeeded in mastering the correct pronunciation of the latter. On p. 125, in one of the L)ouce MSS., appears a curious preface in rimed verse.

Quentin Durward. By Sir Walter Scott. Edited

by Andrew Lang. (Nimmo.)

' QUENTIN DURWARD,' now added to Mr. Nimmo's reissue of the "Border Edition" of the Waverley novels, is in general estimate one of the best of the series. It is at least one of the most romantic. Scott showed a little timidity in winning vicari- ously for his hero the lovely Countess of Croye. From the first to the latest perusal of the volume we felt how impossible it was to suppose Quentin hearing the voice of Gertrude Pavilion or of turning for a moment his head from his fierce and dangerous adversary. It is, however, a part of Scott's cha- racteristic moderation to substitute Le Balafre" for the youth who has already had so many oppor- tunities of distinguishing himself. Had Scott intro- duced a further scene, in which the Duke of Bur- gundy communicated to Isabelle de Croye the result of the combat for her hand, he would have gratified a good many readers whose love of poetic justice is greater than their regard for art. The book is, however, noble in all respects, and is in this edition admirably illustrated.

The, Cathedral Church of York. By A. Clutton-

Brock. (Bell & Sons.)

A HISTORY of the magnificent Minster of York is the latest addition to Bell's admirable " Cathedral Series," which, in spite of the death of one of its editors, still advances towards completion. In his account of this noble pile Mr. Glutton-Brock owns to having followed Prof. Wallis, a safe guide in all respects. A whole literature is, however, available for York Minster, and the only or, at least, the chief difficulty of the latest historian has con- sisted in the task of selection and compression. This he has successfully accomplished, and his book is worthy to stand beside its predecessors. A good deal of attention is bestowed upon the city, the most ancient, and in some respects the most inter- esting, in England. Little attention is paid to the mythical origin of York, narrated by Geoffrey of Monmouth and favoured in Francis Drake's

Eboracum, and no credit is given the origin of the name from the Ure, a comparatively insignificant tributary of the Ouse. The views of the city and of its picturesque gates are well selected. Little is, however, said of the minor ecclesiastical edifices with which York overflows. Of the building itself Mr. Uutton-Brock holds that it seems rather to express the secular magnificence and temporal power ot a church conspicuous in history than the spiritual aspirations of a. people. Be this as it may, the Minster wants only to be placed on an elevation such as is seen at Lincoln or at Durham to stand easily foremost of English cathedrals. Without that advantage, even, we are not sure that it does not so stand. The illustrations of the exterior and the interior are alike excellent. They are chiefly photographic.

(l nde ? to the Times. Oct. 1st to Dec. 31st, .-0ct, 1st to Dec. 31st, 1824. (Shepperton- on-Thames, Palmer.)

WITH the index to the Times for the three con- cluding months of last year Mr. Palmer sends us the index to the autumnal quarter for 1824, part of a series he is reprinting for subscribers. The appearance of the two works is similar, but the little quarto of twenty-seven pages has now swelled out into ninety-two. The editor and publisher takes justifiable pride in the fact that all attempt at competition has proved a failure, and that the i work remains authoritative as well as indispensable. He quotes the declaration of the late Mowbray I Morns, the leading spirit of the Times when the I J imes was at its best, that the work was from the I outset perfect. It has, indeed, fulfilled its promise, and is a work of transparent utility. Of some things it is the only existing register, and it is a book that should be in every library and institution in the kingdom. Attention is drawn to the fact that when a file of the Times is inaccessible it will serve for other newspapers. The index has now been in existence seventy-four years.

Landmarks in English Industrial History. Bv George Townsend Warner, M.A. (Blackie &

MODEST as are the pretensions of this book and ts author is careful, so far as the matter is con- cerned, to make no claim to originality it is a work displaying much insight and acumen, and likely to be very serviceable to those seeking to grasp the significance and development of England's com- mercial and industrial progress. Choosing subjects such as the manorial system, the mercantile system the rise of banking, the agrarian revolution, &c., Mr. Warner groups around each the causes from which it sprang and the developments to which it gave rise. The information is in every case accurate and condensed, and there are few except close students of economics and social progress who will riot rise from the perusal with ideas enlarged or amended. If the reader wishes to take one chapter as representative of all, let him take that on the Black Death of 1348-50, and study its influence upon the lord and the labourer, together with the col- lisions between the two classes to which it gave nse ' et, - lim then com P ar> e with this the chapter on Machinery and Power" and that on "The Agrarian Revolution." Very well has the task of selection of subjects been discharged by Mr. War- ner, and the book, though necessarily a com- pendium, is so pleasant to read that no one who