examples of the dated effigies were those of Abbot
Mackinnon, a.d. 1500, and Anna, Prioress of lona,
AD. 1543. Of erect, free-standing crosses of the
Post-Norman period there were only two at lona,
namely, the so-called MacLean's Cross, still stand-
ing entire, and the shaft of the cross of Lachlan
Mackinnon and his son John, Abbot of Ty, erected
in 1489, and now lying in St. Oran's Chapel. In
the second paper Mr. Robert Brydale gave a
description, with drawings, of an incised sepulchral
slab at Ardchattan, with a Gaelic inscription com-
memorating John MacDougal, son of Black John,
which probably belonged to the fourteenth century.
He also described other three slabs, one with
foliageous ornament only, another with a sword,
a group of animals, and foliage, and a third with
a claymore and axe, in the graveyard at Taynuilt.
In the third paper the Rev. Reginald A. Gatty
described a series of very minute flint implements
of special types which he had collected at Scun-
thorpe, Lincolnshire, and various other places, and
which had been found also over an area so wide
as to include Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, and
India.
^^ ^ ^
Glasgow Arch^ological Societv. January 17.
Mr. George Neilson presiding. Major O. E.
Ruck, Royal Engineers' Headquarters Staff, Edin-
burgh, read a paper on " The Antonine Lines
as a Defensive Design ; a Comparison in Ancient
and Modern Principles of Fortification." Major
Ruck began by showing that the Roman engineers
carried out the principles of fortification work pre-
cisely in the same way as would be done in the
present day, after excluding the differences due
to the introduction of long-range weapons. The
Romans adapted their work most skilfully to the
ground, and, with a watchful eye to economy in
construction, provided always that defensive re-
quirements were not sacrificed to economical con-
siderations. The many unexplained details of
construction, such as the curious expansions at
intervals along the line of vallum, the peculiar
dark lines in the cross section of the vallum, the
intermediate culverts, and the strengthening of the
vallum at the supporting forts, besides many other
minor details, were commented on, and various
plausible theories suggested to account for them.
The next question dealt with was the distribution
of the men who would be required to garrison and
construct the whole work. Reasoning on the basis
of thfe rules laid down for the great lines of Torres
Vedras in 181 1, Major Ruck estimated that 50,000
men would be required to construct the Antonine
lines in six months and to defend them, including
a mobile army for offensive operations. He made
detailed calculations for the whole of the works,
based on the rates of construction, for excavating,
quarrying, sod-building, and digging at the present
time, and showed how all the men would be em-
ployed. Comparing these numbers with those laid
down on the inscribed tablets, he showed that if
all the stones for the masonry-work had previously
been prepared, and everything favourable, the
whole work might have been commenced and
finished, by reducing the available field army, in
two months. Dealing with the cost, he estimated
that for the whole of the lines on modern civil con-
tract rates the sum of /3i6,8oo would be required
to construct the work, assuming the materials
(stones and sods) to be the property of the Roman
Government. Reducing this sum to its equivalent
in labour at military rates of pay, it would be found
that it worked out to just the same number of men
which, by the rules of modern lines ponstruction,
had been previously calculated to construct and
garrison the Antonine, and which also agreed re-
markably well with the numbers laid down as
actually employed by the inscriptions on the ancient
Roman tablets. A rough approximate estimate of
the relative cost of the Hadrian lines would amount
to ;f 1, 263,000.
^ ^ ^
Shropshire Parish Register Society. The third
annual meeting of this society was held at Shrews-
bury on January 21, Lord Windsor, president, in
the chair. The report stated that the number
of members was 202, and that during the past year
fifteen complete registers had been issued to
members. Nine other registers were in type, and
ready for issue, whilst forty-nine transcripts were
ready for printing, and thirty other registers were
being transcribed. Bound and indexed copies of
their registers had been presented to twenty-four
parishes for preservation in the parish chest.
During the three years of the society's existence,
no less than thirty-eight registers had been issued
to members. The report, which further stated that
the non-parochial registers of Shropshire were also
being copied, two dating back to 1692 and 1708
having passed through the press, was duly adopted,
and cordial votes of thanks were passed to the
transcribers and collators of registers, to the
clergy, and to the chairman for presiding.
^ 09 ^
Society of Biblical Archaeology. February 13.
Mr. T. G. Pinches read a paper on " Assyrio-
logical Gleanings, with some References to Baby-
lonian Magic."
IRetJieto0 anD Jl3oticcs
of I3etti T5ooks.
[Publishers are requested to be so good as always to
mark clearly the prices of books sent for review, as
these tiotices are intended to be a practical aid to
book-buying readers.'^
A History of Newport Pagnell. By Frederick
William Bull. With illustrations. Ketterin;? :
W . E. and y . Goss. 1900. 8vo., pp. xi, 296.
Price 2 IS. net.
The townsfolk of Newport Pagnell have been
placed under no small obligation to the author of
this very excellent account of their town. A mere
glance at the plentiful supply of references to
authorities consulted spread throughout the book.
94
REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
is of itself sufficient to convince the reader of the
care and industry of the writer to perfect his
labour. The material thus collected is as carefully
and as admirably arranged, the reader being
carried in consecutive order from the visit of the
King's Justices Itinerant in 1204 down to the
local celebrations upon the occasion of the Dia-
mond Jubilee in 1897. An exhaustive account of
the Manor is followed by the like in regard to the
Cluniac Priory of Tickford, one of those lesser
foundations which went to the founding of VVolsey's
great College at Oxford.
Part 111. is concerned with the ecclesiastical
history of the parish, to which a complete list of
Newport's vicars from 1246 to the present day is
appended. Neither have the Nonconformist bodies
been forgotten, over twenty pages being devoted to
the story of their existence in the town. The
remainder of the volume is taken up with matters
concerning the town lands, the parish, its nineteen
charities, and short biographical sketches of its
worthies. The statement that Richard Carpenter,
a convert to Catholicism, went to Douay is not
borne out by the published Diaries of that
College, A Carpenter, it is true, appears in
these lists, but with the Christian name of
Sebastian, and of a date anterior to the birth of
Richard. The chapter on the lace trade is some-
what meagre, considering that Buckinghamshire
was the centre of this, at one time, important
industry. A few illustrations of bobbins and
pillows, and the method of working, would have
enhanced the value of the book. H. P. F.
* *
LucA DELLA RoBBiA. By the Marchesa Burla-
macchi. With 40 illustrations and a photo-
gravure frontispiece. London: George Bell and
Sons, 1900. Post 8vo. Pp. xvi. 126. Price
5s. net.
Messrs. Bell do a great service to the Arts, fine
and applied, in the several series of works issued
under their auspices. This volume, which deals
with the exquisite and gentle creations of the two
Robbias. uncle and nephew, is a good example of
the series of " Great Masters in Painting and
Sculpture," edited by Dr. G. C. W'iUiamson. The
editor himself here adds a brief but admirable
chapter on the " Work and Position in Italian
Art " of Luca, whose individual and well-nigh
unique genius he carefully appreciates. This
chapter is just what the reader wants after the
somewhat pedestrian pages of the author; but
after all, far removed as is the style of the
Marchesa Burlamacchi from that of Walter Pater
in his" Renaissance Studies," one aim of this series
is well attained, and that is a full and clear record
of the few facts of the artists' lives and of their
extant wotks. The account is clear, as any reader
will discover; it is full, as the Bibliography,
Chronological List, and Catalogues of Documents
and of the Works in Various Countries, in tabular
form, all combine to show. W^e note one omis-
sion from the list of works now in England the ex-
ample in Lord Northbrook's coUectfon. The author
shows the true critical spirit in deploring the lack
of a work of Lucas youth, and in noting the truly
classical treatment of drapery in these wonderful
pieces of enamelled terra-cotta. The book, like
others of its series, is a marvel of cheapness, if only
for the illustrations ; half-tone process-blocks, guilty
as they are of supplanting the beautiful slain art of
line-engraving in book-illustration, are yet most
suitable for the purf)ose of multiplying copies of
old masterpieces and of sculpture in particular.
The various illustrations here given are well chosen
and so admirably printed that they make a collec-
tion equal to one of any photographs. The reader
in England is able to see for himself that, always
excepting the Frieze of the Parthenon, the" Singing
Gallery " of Luca is, perhaps, the finest sustained
effort in bas-relief in the world. And the many
copies of the sweet and truly Christian Madonna-
pieces exhibit that purity which " the intense
glowing whiteness of his enamel will typify and
which the blue of the heavens which he brought
down to earth will represent."
*
Old Cottages and Farmhouses in Kent and
Sussex. Photographs by W. Galsworthy
Davie. Descriptive notes and sketches by
E. Guy Dawber. London : B. T. Batsford,
1900, 4to., pp. 28, and 100 Collotype Plates.
Price 21S. net.
All lovers of our domestic architecture should
buy this book. In 100 full-page excellent photo-
graphs, printed in collotype, Mr. Davie brings
before us a series of charming specimens of the
humbler class of rural dwellings- the cottages and
farmhouses which are so closely associateid with
country life and history during the last three to
four hundred years. c3ne or two of the houses
such as the Clergy House and the Star Inn at
Alfriston are familiar to most people from the
frequency with which they have been photographed
and pictured. And some of the plates relating to
particular neighbourhoods will doubtless be fami-
liar to those wanderers afoot or awheel through
the lovely Kent and Sussex country, who have had
their eyes open to the picturesque beauty of so many
of these country homes. But others will probably
come as a revelation even to wanderers fairly well
acquainted with the two counties. Some of the
most interesting examples given are those of
timber-framed and plastered bouses whose strong
posts and beams were placed in position in days
when most of the Weald was covered with forests.
Plate 3 (Stonehill Farm, Chiddingly), in which
the mode of framing the timbers can be clearly
seen, Plate 4 (Six Bells Inn, Hollingbourne), and
Plate 56 (Swaylands, near Penshurst), are par-
ticularly good. Plates 13 and 14, showing the
elaborate curved braces on " The Middle House "
at Mayfield, are worth noting. Many of the tile-
hung and boarded houses are simply old timber-
framed dwellings, as Mr. Dawber says " in a new
shell." Plate 11 (Seven Stars Inn, Robertsbridge),
is a fine example of a tile-hung house. There are
good views, too, of the quaintly picturesque red-
brick and weather-boarded dwellings which form so
warm and pleasant a note of colour in the rural
landscape. In fact, if we tried to name all the
charming and attractive, plates, we should leave
REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
95
but few unmentioned. As pictures of rural archi-
tectural beauty we may especially name Plates i
(Pattenden, Goudhurst), 27 (at Pulborough), 36
(the Well House, near Northiam), 40 (Strean
Farm, Sedlescombe), 51 (house at Lamberhurst
note the fine chimney-stacks), 73 and 74 (the post-
office at Wickhambreaux), and 87 (at Charlton).
Mr. Dawber's introductory letterpress, illustrated
by many sketches of details, is interesting and
adequate. The publisher hints that he may issue
a companion volume illustrating the same class of
buildings in other counties. We trust that the
reception of the beautiful book before us will be
such as to hasten the publication of the promised
companion volume.
* 4c :(c
Studies by the Way. By the Right Hon. Sir
Edward Fry, F.R.S., etc. London : James
Nisbet and Co., Limited, 1900. Demy 8vo. Pp.
vii, 295. Price los. 6d. net.
This, to readers at all versed in its topics, is a
charming volume. Sir Edward Fry is an eminent
public servant ; these pages betray his private plea-
sures. With a mind trained by scholarship and law
to a diligent accuracy, he has dwelt upon a wide range
of subjects in these nine essays, if those may be called
"essays" which are supplemented by a useful index.
Our own readers will probably turn to the last six,
but we think they will be tempted to follow this dis-
tinguished judge, who retired some years since from
the Bench, but still performs certain admirable judicial
functions, in his examination of "The Theory of
Punishment." More literary subjects are " The
Banquet of Dante," and the short and frank study
of "The Old Testament." But it is in the essay on
"Conveyancing" that the true antiquary in Sir
Edward ranges himself with the judge and the
accurate thinker. There are many who, out of little
minds, sneer at the art which, " in its purest and
highest development," is practised by "a small set of
learned lawyers " in London, and which really saves
them, the clients, from ills they know not of. Our
author here illumines the topic by a multitude of
references to conveyancing as practised in every age
and clime. He begins with Abraham's cave and field
of Machjjelah ; he shows us that earthen vessels
among the Jews anticipated our tin deed-boxes ; he
gives us Assyrian "covenants for quiet enjoyment,"
dating from centuries before Christ ; he tells us of
Aristotle's will, and how that the little tribe of the
Ozolian L'x:rians, "a true little Benjamin," had a
common seal at the beginning of our era. The
accurate and elegant narration of such a tradition is a
liberal education. Sir Edward Fry, if we may re-
spectfully say so, is a " generalist " ; he provides
delight for "specialists" of many varieties. The
reader who first turns to such essays as this upon
"Conveyancing," and that upon "Seunons," may
shrink from the last three upon things Hellenic.
But he will be wrong ; for in them, as it seems to us,
the author's enthusiasm burns most brightly. The
present writer, who is unknown to the author, was
m Athens when, in 1895, .Sir Fid ward Fry was col-
lecting those impressions of "the violet-crowned
city " and of Greece which are here so sharply and
delightfully recorded. With his "Notes on Greece
and on Sicily" we can only compare the late Pro-
fessor Freeman's " Studies in Travel"; but much has
been found since those were written, and we think a
more liberal spirit and a more attractive style are to
be found in this volume. The account of " An Old
Greek Farmer" is, of its kind, "absolute." The
story of Hesiod is given with a freshness which
belongs to Greece, and especially the Greece of
the "Odyssey," and the generations which came
before what we call "historic" times. It is
here truly said "the Greeks are our true ancestors
as regards our intellectual life," and it is in this
spirit that these essays are an admirable instance
of antiquarianism explaining history in a way which
makes literature. It is a wholesome gymnastic to the
mind to think of Hesiod as "the Burns or rather,
perhaps, the Crabbe of Greek literature," when, as
here, we can enter into the grounds of the comparison.
And an honest and serious love of such a past is
gladdened by Sir Edward's comment, out of his
judicial experience, upon the story of Hesiod and
Perses and the disappointed suitor !
In what measured criticism we can command, we
express a hope that the distinguished author may give
us some "More Studies by the Way." Nowadays,
even ten years of the present seem to produce a new
century of the past, and in 1903 we have had the dis-
coveries in Crete of the Palace of Minos, dating far
earlier than Mycenae. We wish Sir Edward Fry
could seek, inter alios, that spot and tell us all about
it in his own inimitable way. W. H. D.
4c 4c 4e
The Churches of Rouen. By the Rev. Thomas
Perkins, M.A., F.R.A.S. With fifty illustra-
tions. London : G. Bell and Sons, 1900.
Crown 8vo., pp. x, 122. Price 2s. 6d. net.
Worcester : The C.\thedral and See. By
E. F. Strange. With fifty-three illustrations.
Same publishers. 1900. Crown 8 vo., pp. 115,
Price IS. 6d. net.
The rapidity of production is in itself a testimony
to the public appreciation of the enterprise of
the publishers in extending their Cathedral Series
of handbooks to the great continental churches.
Scarcely has the excellent monograph on the
beautiful mother - church of Chartres appeared
than it is followed by this account of the
" mouldering magnificence" of the old Gothic town
of Rouen, accompanied with the promise of a
similar book on the cathedral church of Paris at
an early date. The author of the "Handbook to
Gothic Architecture" found himself quite in his
element at Rouen, and has spared no pains to
delight and instruct his readers. The value of the
volume before us is enhanced by the addition of
chapters on the equally fine old churches of St.
Owen and St. Maclou, but the notes on the minor
churches of the city are a little incomplete without
some mention of that " finest specimen of Norman
architecture in France," the abbey-church of St.
George Bocherville. The monograph on Worcester
is a continuation of the English Cathedral Series,
and fully equals the excellence of the preceding
volumes. It should be noted that with the new
year the price of this series is raised to is. 6d. net
per volume.
96
CORRESPONDENCE.
In the Reliquary for January Mr. W. Heneage
Legge writes on the old-world " Villages and
Churches of the Hundred of Willingdon." Sussex,
which hide away in folds of the South Downs.
West Dean church (near Seaford) we remember
visiting twenty-five years ago, when it had many
interesting features. Since then it has been
" restored " and beplastered out of recognition.
Mr. Legge's drawings are admirably illustrative.
Miss Florence Peacock writes on " Needlework
Maps," with some very quaint illustrations, and
Mr. J. K. Floyer on " A Thousand Years of a
Cathedral Library," that of Worcester. The other
contents and the numerous illustrations are up to
the usual excellent level.
* * *
The Northern Counties Magazine is always
welcome. In the February issue papers on " The
West Yorkshire Regiment," " The last Rising of
the North, 1715." " Hiringsinthe Dales," a graphic
picture by Halliwell SutclifTe, " A Westmoreland
Parish Council," a sketch in dialect, and a short
account of Lord Armstrong all justify the periodi-
cal's name. Other contents of interest are " The
Study of Dialects," "A Fellside Tragedy," by
Hubert Crackanthorpe, " Memories of the late
Bishop Creighton," verses bv Sir Hed worth
Williamson and Wilfrid W. Gibson, and Mr. E.
V. Lucas's chatty " London Letter." The illustra-
tions are particularly good. Other more local
periodicals before us are Lincolnshire Notes and
Queries and the Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archcrological
Journal, both for January. In the former are, inter
alia, notes on the civic maces of Lincoln City, with
two excellent plates, and an account of a curious
seventeenth-century Chancery suit in which were
concerned the children of a Lincolnshire worthy
who married successively three wives and had four
daughters, who had only two Christian names
among them. The latter Journal, in addition to
short notes and gossip and proceedings of societies,
has a lecture on " Cookham Church," by Sir
George Young, Bart.
* *
In the Genealogical Magazine for February the
illustrated "Records of an English Manor" are
concluded. Mr. G. Ambrose Lee has an interest-
ing subject in the " Heraldry of Shakespeare's King
Henry the Fifth at the Lyceum Theatre," with
illustrations. There are also papers on " The
Buchanans," and "The Stuart Descendants," and
continuations of several serial contributions.
4c 4c
The Architectural Review for February is, as usual,
full of excellent illustrations, including various
pictures of Chartres Cathedral and Malmesbury
Abbey. Besides articles on these fabrics, there
are papers on " Corfe Castle," the "Latest Dis-
coveries in the Roman Forum," and " ' Henry V.'
at the Lyceum Theatre."
* 4t
Among the periodicals and pamphlets on our
table are xhe Poster and Art Collector for January,
price IS the first issue of a new volume and
series containing many excellent illustrations,
including several to a brief article on " Ancient
Advertising in Bartholomew Fair;" the American
Antiquarian and Oriental Journal (January and
February) ; the Cambridge Graphic of February 2
and 9, with a well-illustrated paper on " Ancient
Weapons" by Mr. W. B. Red fern ; Thoughts on
Rome and other Essays (Belfast : M'Caw, Stevenson
and Orr, Limited), by Conway Scott ; and Mr.
Ernest Axon's very full and carefully prepared
Index to the Owen MSS. in the Manchester Free
Reference IJbrary. This last, with its introductory
account of Mr. Owen, the local " Old Mortality,"
and his collections, which extend to eighty volumes
in folio and quarto, i^ an excellent piece of biblio-
graphical work, issued by the library authorities
at the nominal price of 2d., and deserves a larger
notice than we have space to give it. It will be
specially valuable to genealogists.
CorcesponDence.
YORKSHIRE BOULDER STONES.
To THE Editor.
Without offering an opinion upon their origin, I
may remark there are, of course, many stones such
as those to which J. R. draws particular attention
in last month's Antiquary. Some exist in a field at
Marsden in Bedfordshire, and are locally known as
the Devil's Jump. Tradition says his Satanic Majesty
in a fit of terror brought on, probably, by coming
suddenly upon the village cross flew off with a
hop-skip-and-a-jump, and the boulders in question
mark the spots where Satan landed between the
bounds. This, of course, must have been at some
remote period prior to his last recorded visit to
Dartmoor. It was, every moorman knows, upon
the northern fringe of this wild waste, at " North
Lew, the devil died of cold," and that, further, he
was buried under the old village cross there,
one that Benedictine monks, from the Abbey of
SS. Mary and Rumon (Rumon, we are all aware,
or ought to be, was an Irish Bishop), erected at
Tavistock, probably upon the site of a still earlier
preaching-cross, in the thirteenth or fourteenth
century. When, after some conservative renova-
tion, this fine old cross was re-dedicated upon
July 21 last by the present Bishop of Bristol
(Dr. Forrest Brown), his Lordship, standing upon
the steps forming the base of the venerable fabric,
alluded to the tradition, and added : " We have all
been told from childhood that the devil lies buried
beneath the very stones upon which I stand, but
we have still to ask ourselves whether he is not
still alive in the heart of everyone present."
Harry Hems.
Fair Park, Exeter,
February 2, 1901.
Note to Publishers. H^e shall be particularly
obliged to publishers if they will always state the price
of books sent for review. .
NOTES OF THE MONTH.
97
The Antiquary.
APRIL, 1 90 1.
if3ote0 of tbe out!).
There has been a good deal of discussion
regarding the remarkable find of ancient
Greek bronze and marble statuary off the
coast of the island of Cerigo, to which we
alluded briefly last month. The figures and
fragments found include a life-size bronze
figure of a youth, apparently Hermes, two
bronze statuettes of athletes, the head and
one arm of a bronze statue of a boxer, six
marble statues, and a number of detached
hands and feet. It has been suggested that
the finds are part of the collection of Greek
works of art made by Lord Elgin at the
beginning of the last century, and placed by