1922] NOTES AND QUERES

frst to the Eve

A Medium of Intercommunication

FOR

TERARY MEN, GENERAL READERS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."-CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

PRICE SIXPENCE.

NOVEMBER 25, 1922. {Registe Post free 7d. paper.

T HENDRED

A BERKSHIRE PARISH
HISTORICALLY TREATED.

A SUGGESTION for a COMPLETE PAROCHIAL SURVEY of the KINGDOM.

By ARTHUR L. HUMPHREYS,

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

This book has been put together chiefly to suggest a practical scheme for recording historical data relating to any parish, and above all for urging the necessity of preparing and printing parish lists, and inventories-not only of buildings, but of documents. It reveals a definite plan embodying the essentials for a complete historical survey. The book advances no theories and there is no hypothesis or guesswork. The compiler is satisfied to present historical facts plainly and clearly, giving authorities. No one who watches what is done in the direction of local history can fail to see what fine work is accomplished by the efforts of the clergy, lawyers, local schoolmasters and others. There is, however, sometimes lacking a sense of fitness, elimination and proportion, and huge volumes are produced where smaller ones would serve a better purpose.

Among much other matter there are given in this book: (1) Lists of Place and Field names; (2) Full references to Charters and other early documents; (3) The texts of an early "Terrier" and Survey; (4) Lists of Clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, with biographies; (5) Full lists of Wills, with specimens; (6) Lists of all existing illustrations; (7) Lists of Portraits, engraved or painted; (8) Monumental inscriptions; (9) Historical relics; (1C) A detailed list of Manuscript and Printed sources; (11) Biographies of families and individuals, with extensive genealogical notes; (12) Appendix containing full text of representative documents; (13) Exhaustive index which will render the book of value to genealogists both here, in America and the Colonies.

The volume will consist of about three hundred pages. It will be well printed in large type on good paper, and published at fifteen shillings net.

A. L. HUMPHREYS, 187, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W.

Some interesting information on the subject may be found in John Mason Neale, D.D. A Memoir (by Eleanor A. Towle) and Letters of John Mason Neale, D.D.' (edited by Mary Sackville Lawson).

J. DE BERNIERE SMITH.

AUTHORS WANTED (12 S. x. 210), 6.-There is a close parallel to the line "It chanced. Eternal God that chance did guide" the author of which remains unidentified, in Sir Simonds D'Ewes' Autobiography' (ii. 251): It happened by a mere casualtie that our first sitting upon this business was in the Starre-Chamber, wheerein I noted God's wonderfull Providence, that wee should sitt in that Court wheere their bloudie sentences had passed against them to judge those sentences.' Compare Chamfort's famous saying Le hasard est un sobriquet de la Providence." JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

S.P.E. Tract No. 10. On Grammatical Enversions. By H. W. Fowler. (Clarendon Press). MR. FOWLER strikes out a good dictum towards the close of this essay. Nothing," he says, "bores so fatally as an open consciousness that one is in danger of boring." Here he touches with an illuminating warning the secret of many vagaries of style. He abounds in funny illustration of anxious but unsuccessful, efforts to avoid being tedious, and fits the true practice of inversion with a good working theory. We were a little surprised not to find any reference to German in these remarks. Several of the examples given seem to have been modelled on German usage, and, if it were worth while to take the necessary trouble, it would be interesting to ascertain whether this particular deformity does not occur most in the English of writers who know German well.

Readings in English Social con

History from Contemporary Literature. Vol. r. 1688-1837. Edited by R. B. Morgan. (Cambridge University Press. 4s.)

QUOTATION WANTED (12 S. x. 372).-In nexion with execution stories referred to by Professor Bensly at ante p. 339, I may say that Owen (edn. of 1659, i. No. 123) in his imitation of Sabinus, alias Geo. Schüler, quite spoilt this MR. MORGAN's selection of readings to illus epigram (Gruter Delitiae Poetarum German- trate a period so lengthy and so crowded with orum,' 1612. v. p. 1110); and that Prior's version matter has been made with considerable was set to music in The Musical Miscellany, success. It seems curious to adopt Macaulay 1729, i. p. 94. (See my Fardel of Epigrams,' Oxford, pp. 46, 109).

Another execution story will be found in Noël du Fail, who gives an anecdote of an exciseman, who, having been condemned to death for unlawful exaction, just as the hangman is about to place the rope round his neck, calls for jettons (casting-counters) with which to dispute his jailor's bill, suspecting in his turn an unlawful exaction (Les Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel,' 1586, chap. xxiii, edn. of 1732).

Some

F. P. BARNARD.

Notes on Books.

Aspects of the Genius of Giovanni
Boccaccio. By Edward Hutton.
University Press. 1s. 6d.)

as a contemporary" source for the character
Washington Irving and Moritz are
of the English Squire of 1688; we think that
rather too much space, and Coxe's account of
given
the South Sea Bubble seems disproportionately
stiff reading. The omissions are striking.
Still, the volume contains many attractive
things, provides a pretty good survey of the
superficial aspect of English life during the
eighteenth and early nineteenth
and is illustrated with well-chosen pictures.
Benham's Guide to Colchester. By W. Gurney

centuries,

Benham. (Colchesteer, Benham & Co. 1s.) THE average merit of local guide-books has been so considerably enhanced of late that to say of one that it is among the best is no poor compliment. Mr. Gurney Benham is no doubt well-accustomed to hearing his Colchester (Oxford Guide thus described. He has here further Secured himself in his ample right to have it so by enlarging this fifteenth edition of his work, with scholarly accounts of recently found antiquities, and with numerous additions to the already lavish illustration of the text. Much to be recommended from the first, the Guide may now be still more warmly recommended

PERHAPS, even to those who actually know better, Boccaccio appears too predominantly as the author of the Decameron,' with the character implied thereby. The general reader may know that he was the lover of Fiammetta, the friend of Petrarch, the industrious and multifarious scholar, the enthusiast whose patience won for Italy and Europe the knowledge of Homer; but these sides of his life lie a little in abeyance. The essay before. us brings them forward most attractively, and should stimulate lovers of Italian literature whose acquaintance with Boccaccio is EDITORIAL communications should be addressed relatively superficial to a renewed study of to The Editor of Notes and Queries,' him. For those who have not the opportunity Essex St., Strand, W.C.2."-Advertisements. to do this it offers a clear, finely conceived and Business Letters, and Corrected Proofs to well-proportioned delineation of him, which by "The Publisher "-at The Bucks Free Press, itself is worth adding to one's mental stock. 20, High Street, High Wycombe, Bucks,

Notice to Correspondents.

Printed and Published by The Bucks Free Press, Ltd., at their Offices, High Street.

Wycombe, in the County of Bucks.

A Medium of Intercommunication

FOR

D6 LITERARY MEN, GENERAL READERS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."-CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

No. 241. [TWELFTH]

SERIES.

NOVEMBER 25, 1922.

PRICE SIXPENCE. Post free 7d. Registered as a Newspaper.

Ready shortly.

EAST HENDRED

A BERKSHIRE PARISH
HISTORICALLY TREATED.

A SUGGESTION for a COMPLETE PAROCHIAL SURVEY of the KINGDOM.

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

This book has been put together chiefly to suggest a practical scheme for recording historical data relating to any parish, and above all for urging the necessity of preparing and printing parish lists, and inventories--not only of buildings, but of documents. It reveals a definite plan embodying the essentials for a complete historical survey. The book advances no theories and there is no hypothesis or guesswork. The compiler is satisfied to present historical facts plainly and clearly, giving authorities. No one who watches what is done in the direction of local history can fail to see what fine work is accomplished by the efforts of the clergy, lawyers, local schoolmasters and others. There is, however, sometimes lacking a sense of fitness, elimination and proportion, and huge volumes are produced where smaller ones would serve a better purpose.

Among much other matter there are given in this book: (1) Lists of Place and Field names; (2) Full references to Charters and other early documents; (3) The texts of an early "Terrier" and Survey; (4) Lists of Clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, with biographies; (5) Full lists of Wills, with specimens; (6) Lists of all existing illustrations; (7) Lists of Portraits, engraved or painted; (8) Monumental inscriptions; (9) Historical relics; (1C) A detailed list of Manuscript and Printed sources; (11) Biographies of families and individuals, with extensive genealogical notes; (12) Appendix containing full text of representative documents; (13) Exhaustive index which will render the book of value to genealogists both here, in America and the Colonies.

The volume will consist of about three hundred pages. It will be well printed in large type on good paper, and published at fifteen shillings net.

A. L. HUMPHREYS, 187, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W.