performed a most useful and necessary piece of work. One trembles to think what the study of history would become if every year required equal detail, and yet there is not one superfluous page. No student of the history of this period can henceforth afford to neglect this account of Cromwell's Scotch campaigns. We shall look forward with much interest to Mr. Douglas' future work, for we hope this is only a beginning: but we would give him two hints. The perpetration of mild jokes and the use of slang phrases do not enhance the serious study of history, and are better omitted; whereas Mr. Douglas seems, if we may say so not unkindly, to revel in them. We had marked several instances of this for quotation, but will only give one or two. Quoting the dying words of a Cavalier: "Damme, I'll go to my King", Mr. Douglas says: "The poor Cavie's thoughts, you see, had flown back to Charles the Martyr as he died". And, again: "Is it certain that one hour's advantage gained . . . would have brought him really forrarder'?". So he speaks of "a Silas- Weggish utterance", "the valiant Tyke's power of memory", the dodge of a rusé skipper", The italics are ours.

etc.

This sort of thing abounds, and ends by irritating the reader. The style falls continually below the dignity of the subject; but these are, after all, minor blemishes. We can heartily recommend this book as a solid and interesting contribution to a little-known episode in the great Civil War.

A Caveat for Archippus, being a Sermon preached at a "Visitation" at Whitechapel Church in the year 1618. By JEREMIAH DYKE, Vicar of Epping. Edited, with an Introduction, by BENJ. WINSTONE, of Epping (London: Harrison and Sons, St. Martin's Lane, 1898).— Following up the publication in 1896 of two sermons by the Rev. J. Dyke, with Introductions, Dr. Winstone has this year reprinted the above, again prefixing a learned Introduction to the Discourse. It will be remembered that in 1885 Dr. Winstone published a handsome volume dealing with the history of the ancient Chapel in the parish of Epping, and giving some account of the manor, together with original deeds and other documents. His next volume, that of 1896, contained the two sermons preached by the Vicar of Epping, one in 1622 "On the re-opening of the Chapel in the town", after enlargement and restoration; the other in 1628, "Before Parliament then Assembled". The present volume contains an earlier sermon than either of these, being preached, as the title informs us, at a "Visitation" in 1618.

Mr. Dyke was Vicar of Epping for thirty years, being appointed in 1609, and dying in 1639, his incumbency covering the greater part of

James I's reign, and the beginning of Charles I's; while he was called away before the troublous times of the Great Civil War began. The period of his ministerial activity was a critical one for Church and State, especially the latter part of it, when Archbishop Laud's endeavour to restore the sense of her Catholic continuity to the Church, and to raise the tone of the clergy, both in their celebration of the sacred offices and in their private life, roused the determined opposition of the Puritans, and ultimately brought about the downfall of Church and Monarchy, and the establishment of the Commonwealth on their ruins.

In the historical Introductions prefixed to both his later volumes, Dr. Winstone deals fully with the past relations between Church and State, with the Reformation period and its results, and with the condition of affairs during the ten years covered by these sermons; while the picture he draws of the social and religious state of England at the time is clear and to the point. Mr. Dyke was a typical specimen. of a good clergymen of his age. He belonged to the Calvinistic party in the Church; he was hard-working, practical, and sincerely persuaded of the value of preaching: displaying, indeed, the tendency characteristic of the Calvinistic Puritan to exalt the sermon at the expense of the other departments of ministerial work and service. He possessed a good deal of natural eloquence, was most conscientious in the development of his subject, equally fearless in attacking the faults and vices of clergy and laity alike, and in all respects what would have been called in those days, "a painful preacher".

Dr. Winstone shows that in reading his admonitions to the clergy in the "Caveat", we must make due allowance for ministerial ardour and pulpit oratory, notwithstanding that there must have been not a few of his clerical brethren who were justly obnoxious to his fervent reproofs and exhortations.

Altogether these sermons were well worthy of being rescued from oblivion, as every original document is which contains a graphic picture of its own times, and worthy, too, of the learned Introductions and handsome form with which Dr. Winstone has enriched them. Archæologists generally, and not the inhabitants of Epping alone, are indebted to the Editor for this labour of love.

Norfolk Churches-Hundred of Wayland. By T. HUGH BRyant. Illustrated by C. A. CORMICK (Norwich Mercury Office, 1898. 3s. 6d.). The proprietors of the Norwich Mercury are doing a good work in the popularization of archæological knowledge as far as it concerns the history of the parishes and churches in their own county, and one that

might well be imitated by the proprietors of other great newspapers in other counties. At the beginning of this year, with commendable enterprise, they commissioned Mr. T. Hugh Bryant to write a series of Papers on the Parish Churches of Norfolk; and these have been

appearing, with illustrations of each church described, in the columns of their journal from week to week. This handsome little book is the first outcome of their efforts, and they do not mean to cease until every church and parish has been included. Sixteen parishes are comprised in the Hundred of Wayland, which lies in the mid-western

portion of the county, and on each of these Mr. Bryant writes in a graphic and spirited manner, giving the salient points of interest in the history of the parishes, with, in many cases, a list of the incumbents from the earliest known date, and, so far as we have been able to

judge, an accurate description of the architectural details of the churches. He has gone to original sources, and is not a mere compiler, and we congratulate him on his work. Norfolk, as is well known, is a land of fine churches, being especially rich in Early Perpendicular : for in the fifteenth century, in spite of the desolating effects produced

by the Wars of the Roses in other districts (which Norfolk appears to have escaped) a great wave of church building and church restoration seems to have flooded East Anglia. The most splendid specimens are to come; but the Hundred of which this booklet treats contains some characteristic examples. The illustrations are good, artistic and clear. By the courtesy of the proprietors we are enabled to include two: Scoulton Church, which is Early English throughout, except for the octagon surmounting the tower, which is Perpendicular. The reader will notice the square tower, with its peculiarly massive buttresses and the thatched roof. The other illustration is of Rockland Church, with its Norman round tower, surmounted also by an octagon; this, and the fine windows in the nave are Perpendicular, while the roof is again thatched.

To all lovers of parish history and church architecture, whether in Norfolk or out of it, this will form an interesting and attractive series of books.

The Church Treasury of History, Custom, and Folk-lore, etc. Edited by WM. ANDREWS (London: William Andrews and Co., 5, Farringdon Avenue, 1898. 7s. 6d.). This is another of Mr. Andrews' well-known series of books dealing with antiquarian subjects in a popular way. Just as England in Days of Old, and the series of Byegones, dealt with the general fund of archæological lore, always choosing the quaint and the curious and the out-of-the-way rather than the more obvious or the merely historical, and always treating every subject in an easily readable and interesting manner, so in this book, which seems to be a sequel to one previously published, Antiquities and Curiosities of the Church, we find the same method of treatment, and the same choice and variety of subject. Nothing comes amiss to the facile pens of Mr. Andrews and his able coadjutors, and whether they discourse on Stave-kirks, or Holy Wells, or Pilgrims' Signs, or Knight Templars, or Animals of the Church in Stone, Wood and Bronze, or Human Skin fastened to Church Doors (the latter a truly gruesome subject, but all too real a fact, as several church doors could testify, in the Middle Ages), there is the same tranquil flow, the same fascinating attractiveness in the style; so that the least antiquarian of readers is drawn on in spite of himself, and learns to take an interest in details of the life of England and her Church in olden days which he might otherwise never acquire. The writers never dive to the depths of a subject, or probe to its hidden mysteries; but in skimming the surface and sipping the honey by the way-honey sometimes mixed with gall-they are doing a good and useful work in the popularising of archæological