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and although the inhabitants can neither boast the longevity, nor the luxuries of their former preoccupants, yet they find ample means of subsistence; and if strangers happen to survive the first years of their residence there, they are often known to arrive at a good old age.

Trunks of trees, hard, black, and close-grained, are frequently found when digging in the Fens. Abundance of wild fowl. ducks, teal, widgeons, &c. are found in these parts.'

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That a high tide entered the estuary of the Ouse, and laid the Fens under water, to the great distress of the inhabitants, is very probable but that this inundation swept away any other vineyards than the currant bushes in the monastery-gardens, we are slow to credit. In the Saxon Chronology appended to Bede's Ecclesiastical History, the people of Huntingdon are said to have left their town in the year 921, and to have founded Temsford, (query Stamford?) expelled, perhaps by some accident of nature, and accompanied by the fugitive inhabitants of the deluged district.

In the County Chronicle of remarkable events, (year 1795) the present author includes this item. The celebrated Charles James Fox was married in the church of Wyton to Elizabeth Blane,' by the then rector; and signifies that John Horne Tooke, the tutor of Sir Francis Burdett, had been curate of the parish: but Horne Tooke should not be termed tutor of Sir Francis Burdett.'

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At p. 147. occurs the copy of a letter written by King Charles I., and dated Huntingdon 25 August, 1645, in which the king says: My owen declaration, wch is this, that let my condition be neuer so low, my successes neuer so ill, I resolue (by the grace of God,) neuer to yield up this Church to the gouernment of Papists, Presbiterians, or Independents, nor to injure my Successors, by lessening the Crown of that ecclesiasticall & military power wch my Predecessors left me."

The fourth chapter commemorates the eminent natives, especially Henry of Huntingdon, who died in 1280, and left a history of England down to the reign of king Stephen; and the famous Oliver Cromwell, the deposer of his sovereign, but not the liberator of his country. This life of Cromwell is equitable, and contains personal particulars not always remarked by the historians. He was a libertine and a gambler in early youth, but married at the age of twenty-one, and then took a serious turn. At one time he was a brewer: but it cannot be said of him as of the French General Santerre, Il n'eut de Mars 6 la bière.' Chapter V. enumerates the various benefactions given by pious individuals for the foundation of schools and hospitals: The sixth describes the town; and the seventh relates to the environs. An appendix gives a full copy of the charter; and is followed by a good index.

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It would not be amiss if local historians allotted a separate section to a list of useful projects for improving the district under their survey. The canal, which local means cannot realize, might be undertaken by distant speculators, and the bridge, which in private hands must be repaid by an inconvenient rate, might be

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conferred by the patronage of some candidate or some neighbour ing nobleman.

Art. 16. A descriptive and historical Account of Dudley Castle, and its surrounding scenery: with graphic illustrations. By the Rev. Luke Booker, LL.D. F.R.S.L. Vicar of Dudley. 8vo. 7s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co., &c. 1825.

A Stranger's Guide to Dudley Castle will no doubt highly ac commodate those travellers who go to visit that extensive venerable ruin, and the romantic various scenery of the park which encompasses it with so beautiful a precinct. The late respectable proprietor Lord Dudley and Ward, seems to have consulted in his alterations the convenience and gratification of the public, and to have made the drives and walks about his grounds as compendious, smooth, and pervasive, as they could be consistently with a full display of the singular and impressive features of the scene. We trust that this descriptive catalogue of the extent, phænomena, and adherent reminiscences of the spot will convene, from a distance, a long succession of pilgrims, anxious to place in their memories a picture from nature of so remarkable and so interesting a train of prospect. Have not Compostella and Loretto owed to the love of landscape-hunting half the pilgrimages, which superstition claims the honor of having caused?

Dr. Booker divides his account into three parts, of which the first pourtrays the grounds, and the second the castle, in a somewhat overstrained style of eloquence imitated from Hervey's Meditations, full of common places equally applicable any where else, (see for instance, p. 6.) and full of compliments to the late and the present noble owners, which would have been better placed in the author's intended history of the town and priory of Dudley: for in a book made at their own request, as a directory over their own premises, panegyrics of this sort have too much the appearance of fulsome flattery.

Part III. gives historical notices of the castle and its lords, and displays highly respectable antiquarian acquirements. An appendix contains various documents and vouchers; and also the natural history of the spot in its several branches of ornithology, entomology, and mineralogy. Nine engravings exhibit plans of the ground and ruins, and views of the principal objects of curiosity.

A cheaper edition of this publication might be desirable: for it is not every pedestrian from the neighbouring towns and mining districts, who can conveniently afford so expensive yet so useful a companion of his saunter.

BIOGRAPHY.

Art. 17. Memoirs; including Original Journals, Letters, Papers, and Antiquarian Tracts, of the late Charles Alfred Stothard, F. S. A. Author of "The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain." With connective Notices of his Life, and some Account of a Journey in the Netherlands. By Mrs. Charles

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Stothard,

Stothard, Author of "Letters written during a Tour through Normandy, Britanny, and other Parts of France, in 1818." 8vo. pp. 497. 15s. Boards. Longman and Co.

Mr. Charles Alfred Stothard displayed considerable merit as a graphic antiquary, and superintended the publication, in numbers, of a splendid work entitled "The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain." He also published "Illustrations of Letters written during a Tour through Normandy and Britanny, by Mrs. C. Stothard," "Illustrations for the Magna Britannia" of Lysons; and "Illustrations for a Description of the Bayeux Tapestry," published by the Society of Antiquaries; all which contributions to the line of art he practised have rendered some biographic notices concerning him desirable. If the affection of his widow, by whom the task has been performed, has given more than due extent to the memoirs of a life not in many respects remarkable, there is, at least, in this garrulity of the heart, a consolatory piety and a meritorious pride.

Mr. C. A. Stothard was born at London in 1786: and was put to a Latin school. He was sedulously instructed in drawing by his father, a well-known artist. In 1807 he was admitted to the Life Academy: but a taste for antiquarian studies, much increased by the sympathy of a fellow-student named Kempe, gradually drew his attention to the drawing of monuments, and led him to project the publication of the principal Monumental Effigies of Great Britain. He acquired the necessary skill in etching; and undertook to publish at his own expence and risk, some successive numbers of the work. In 1809 he became attached to his friend's sister, Miss Kempe, whom he nine years afterwards married. In the summer of 1811 he visited Canterbury for the purpose of making drawings in the Cathedral. While there engaged upon an effigy situate in the under-croft of the church, which he had caused to be lighted up with candles, his foot slipped, and he fell from the ladder on which he stood. In one of his letters dated Worthing, August 11th, 1814, he relates a visit to Arundel Castle, in which the following passage occurs:

We then passed into an anti-room, where there is a pavement quite perfect, formed with Greek and other ornaments. Here were human bones, pieces of earthenware, fragments of dilapidated columns, &c. Dame Tupper was not without her suspicions, and watched me narrowly; but I managed to steal part of a vase, and a bit of a broken flue; following, in this, the worthy example of my fellow antiquaries, the learned investigators of Holwood Hill, on some such occasions, and whose consciences let them rest in peace, in spite of certain remembrances of purloined Roman keys, old tiles, bricks, and broken pitchers.'

We cannot look upon pilfering in this way as less than criminal, though committed with unblushing impunity; and the levity, with which the confession is so candidly made, appears to us very unbecoming in one ranking above suspicion. What would become of our museums, our libraries, our public monuments, our collections of works of art, if every one having access were to think

himself

himself at liberty to purloin the volumes or specimens allowed to be inspected as objects of curiosity? Some further account of the visit to Arundel, in a style equally flippant and indiscreet, occurs at p. 173.

I was at Arundel last autumn, drawing some fine monuments of the earl's there. The chancel which contains them was locked up, all drawing forbidden; and yet, in spite of such obstacles, from an encourager of the arts and sciences I obtained access.

Two parties possess keys of the chancel. I attacked that point I thought weakest, three pretty girls, friends of the duke's. I got into the chancel by these means; but paid for it by attending at dances, &c. &c., and being as unmonumental as possible. I hope my difficulties may be ever overcome in this manner.'

In 1816 Mr. C. A. Stothard went to France at the expense of the Society of Antiquaries to draw the Bayeux tapestry and a sort of journal is given of his tour. Of a subsequent tour in Flanders a similar journal is also given; and these curious antiquarian comments constitute the most prominent part of his contributions to the present volume. They display the characteristic micrology of his sect; the patient industry of tomb-explorers.

"Dim lights of life, to burn a length of years,

Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres."

In May, 1821, Mr. Stothard went to Beer-Ferrers for the purpose of copying some stained glass, which had long been preserved in the church there. He borrowed a ladder of a gardener; and while he was at work about ten feet from the ground, he fell and fractured his skull. The fatal blow by which he was cut off in the flower of his days was received on the temple. A pathetic description follows of the distress of his widow and family which terminates the narration. The deep feeling displayed by the authoress gives a powerful interest to the story of the melancholy catastrophe, which is calculated to draw many a sympathetic tear from readers to whom he was unknown. Every part of the volume which Mrs. Stothard has supplied is remarkable for elegance of diction, for tenderness of heart, and for purity and propriety of moral sentiment.

EDUCATION.

Art. 18. A Vocabulary of the Greek Roots, calculated to facilitate to the young Student the Acquisition of that Language. By the Rev. Richard Povah, LL.D. 12mo. London. Baldwin. 1824.

Dr. Povah's experience as a teacher would silence our objections, if we had any, to his Vocabulary. Still we do not think that barren exercises of the memory, unassociated with actual reading, are necessary helps to the attainment of any language, and much less to that of the Greek. It is right, however, that the author should propound his plan in his own words. We, therefore, copy his preface.

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The editor of this Vocabulary presents it to the world from the conviction that much less time is necessary than is usually spent in the knowledge of Greek. Boys feel discouraged in turning over the leaves of a Lexicon before they are sufficiently interested in the search. The following Vocabulary contains most of the words that occur in classical authors; and a page committed to memory every day, with the judicious application of it by their tutor, would (he speaks from experience, and therefore with confidence) greatly facilitate the knowledge of the finest language ever spoken by man.'

We have carefully inspected the Vocabulary, and have noticed one or two inaccuracies only. In page 3. 'O apáxins, a spider, has the second syllable short and is thus printed apaxyns. The a must be long by position. So the second syllable in the derivative ἀράχνιον.

Οδυσσῆος δέ που εὐνὴ

Χήτει ἐνευναίων κάκ' ἀράχνια κεῖται ἔχουσα. Hom. Od. ii. v. 34. In page 25. To payyavoy is translated juggling. We are aware that Dr. Povah has the authority of Suidas," inopinatum quippiam, et inexpectatum machinamentum, qualia sunt præstigiatorum:" but this means only a juggle, not juggling in the abstract; and in a vocabulary, we prefer those acceptations which are most in use. The most ordinary meaning of payyavov is machinamentum or machina, a machine or engine; μayyavoy moreμinov, a warlike machine such as the balista; payyava modeμina, tormenta.

Art. 19. The Etymologic Interpreter; or an Explanatory and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language; to which is prefixed an Introduction containing a full Developement of the principles of Etymology and Grammar, &c. &c. &c. By James Gilchrist. 8vo. pp. 274. Hunter. London.

Mr. Gilchrist's Philosophic Etymology was noticed by us at great length in vol. lxxxiv. p. 304; and this work is little else than a republication of that treatise in a somewhat varied form. Elo"quence, dialective resource, various knowlege, a love of analogy, and simplicity in language, adorn both publications; but a predilection for seeking the roots of words in the classical languages gives rise to many improbable etymological conjectures. Thus in p. 25. we are told that yellow is derived from the Latin melleus and signifies honey-coloured; whereas, in all the Gothic dialects the word is allied with the root gold or goold: in Swedish gul, in Danish guul, in Icelandish gulur, in German gelb, in which last the substantive gold occurs in the form geld, money. The yolk or yelk of the egg means the gold of the egg. The Italian giallo, changed in English into yellow, is a Gothic word introduced by the Lombards, and not a corruption of the Latin melleus, whence evidently we have mellow.

Again, at p. 46., the verb hint is set down as a derivation from intimate: whereas, it is etymologically connected with the hind part; and means a suggestion from behind. Thus, again, at p. 61., we are told that fact, feat, fight, fit, are all originally one word. We

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