and in doing so, he is countenanced by respectable writers, who have found themselves obliged to adopt the same resource. Clarendon, for instance, has passed over the subject of the Eikon Basilike, and Burnet has forborn to mention the French Prophets, who excited such a sensation during his time.

The narrative is generally clear and spirited, and exhibits research and reflection. We doubt whether it was necessary to go into ecclesiastical history, as Crevier has not done so ; but on this point we shall merely observe, that the author principally follows Mosheim, whilst his opinions concerning the growth of Popery are similar to those of Mr. Isaac Taylor, in his Natural History of Enthusiasm, and Ancient Christianity. With regard to Constantine's vision, and the phenomena at Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple, we think Dr. W. C. Taylor has treated them in a better spirit, in his Manual of Ancient History, though both writers appear to regard them in the same way. The vices of the Emperors are exhibited with too much of that unreservedness which Suetonius employs; and the account of Zenobia includes particulars, which we think the author will expunge, when his attention has been drawn to them.

If we have seemed hypercritical in our remarks, it is that the second edition may gain some improvement, however slight. We quote the concluding sentence, as one which ably closes the volume.

"A new order of things was to arise out of the union of German energy with Roman civilisation, from which, after a series of many centuries, were to result the social institutions of modern Europe, the colonisation of the most distant re

gions of the earth, and the mighty political events which yet lie hidden in the

womb of Time."

The History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness, in the East Riding of the county of York, including the Abbies of Meaux and Swine, with the Priories of Nunkeeling and Burstall, &c. By George Poulson, Esq. Author of Beverlac, or History of Beverley. Part I. 4to. WE have examined the first portion

of this work with considerable regret. There is such an evident good intention in all the parties concerned, that we cannot but lament the many imperfections in their several performances. A History of Holderness appears to have been originally projected by the late Mr. John Greenwood,"draughtsman and engraver," of the good town of Hull. He was an artist who had evidently an affection for subjects of antiquity, which only required to have been directed by some patron of good judgment, to have been rendered serviceable: but none of the specimens of his professional skill in the book before us can be considered successful, unless we except some fac-similes of charters (and with them we cannot include the seals). His etchings are not pleasing; the most ambitious plate, a view of the fine church of Patrington, appears to have failed in the biting, or to have prematurely worn out; and the woodcuts, though of the whole the best in their kind, and not ill suited to the subjects they represent, yet it would be absurd to praise in the present state of that art. To speak here of the larger plates, originally prepared nearly sixty years ago for the proposed History of Holderness by Mr. Dade, they are really not worth the paper and printing bestowed upon them. As for representing objects in their former state, those objects have not so materially changed as to make that plea valid; or, if any have, a copy on wood on a smaller scale would have been a more pleasing and even more economical alternative than the insertion of these ungainly sheets.

To pursue, however, our account of the History itself. The next step to the conception of the design was the collection of materials. Mr. Greenwood, we are told in the advertisement, "had spent much time in Holderness in making drawings," &c. but it was probably not within the further, and "it was not until the scope of his abilities to proceed much Dade Manuscripts were placed in the

a little volume, fully illustrated with wood* Mr. Greenwood was the compiler of cuts, on Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, reviewed in our vol. V. p. 282. He died a few months ago.

hands of the compiler of the following pages, by the liberality and condescending kindness of Sir T. A. Clifford Constable, Bart. that the slightest prospect existed of realising any such intentions."

The Rev. William Dade, F.S.A. was Rector of Barmston within this district, as well as of St. Mary's Castlegate, York, and Curate of St. Olave's Moorgate, without that city. He published, in 1783, proposals for a History of Holderness, in folio; but died before it was printed, in 1790.* His plates, however, were prepared, as before noticed; and his materials, it may be presumed, had been brought into almost as perfect a state as lay within his power. His forte appears to have rested in personal records and genealogical facts; for we find that he had formed from parochial registers, &c. an Alphabetical Register of Marriages, Births, and Burials of considerable persons within the county of York: a very neat manuscript, well bound in several volumes."

The acquisition of Mr. Dade's materials was certainly a great step towards the formation of a History of Holderness: but the half-century which has elapsed since that gentleman's death, has been an important period to the topographer, not merely in the additional æra it has added to his labours, but in the vast accession of materials of an earlier date which it has developed and brought within the scope of his researches. Not the least important of these are the publications of the Record Commission, which have been so liberally and judiciously distributed among the several public libraries throughout the kingdom.

This brings us to the execution of the critical part, the painful part of our present inquiry. The stalled ox has been slain, the domestic stores have been brought forth, the achates purchased, the presents received-all things have been collected for the topographical feast; but-how have the cooks performed their part? The author has felt bound to pay his compliments to Mr. Brown, the printer and

A memoir of Mr. Dade may be seen in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii.

P. 474.

publisher, for "the spirited manner in which he has completed the arrangements for the work, and the style in which it has been produced from his printing office at Hull :" and probably Mr. Brown would be equally ready to return his congratulations to the author on the skill and learning displayed on his part. But we must somewhat curtail their mutual compliments. The History of Holderness is a youngster more forward than wise, and more gay in his dress than correct in his manners, To speak less figuratively, the Hull printing is mechanically fair enough, but wofully inaccurate; and the Barrow-upon-Humber authorship externally zealous and plausible enough, but ditto ditto.

We are not sufficiently enthusiastic to suppose, that the works of the Record Commission, the distribution of which among provincial libraries we have just alluded to, are very frequently read or even consulted, by those within whose reach they have been placed; we well know that such readers are not " plentiful as blackberries:" the plan, however, has this merit, that if any such students arise, if for every ten or twenty copies there shall be one such reader,-one, we would say, who, like the late Mr. Blakeway of Shrewsbury, shall scan the records of the past in a sagacious and inquiring spirit, and impart them with equal intelligence and instruction to the world, then the plan will have well answered its liberal design, and have rendered material service to the advancement of historical truth.

It would be our greatest pleasure to welcome such students. But, alas! the use we have more frequently observed as having been hitherto made of the Record volumes by provincial writers, has stopped far short of this desirable result. Some recent topographers have not attempted to understand more than the Indexes, contented to take upon trust the Record text,-itself in too many cases the copy of a mere imperfect Calendar. It is consequently not surprising that even the Indexes have sometimes baffled their powers of comprehension. Yet they do not hesitate to stretch forth their hand, make extracts which they imagine to belong to the subject before them, and place them in

a raw state before the public, whom they must either suppose to have an intuitive faculty of performing the very tasks which these authors refuse, of decyphering, unravelling, explaining, and connecting; or else must deem them so easy of deception, as to mistake assumption for reality, and to be ready to give an author credit for deep antiquarian knowledge, upon the bare display of a few scraps of unintelligible Latin, or rather hieroglyphics.

The extracts from the printed records which have provoked these remarks, occupy several pages of Mr. Poulson's introduction, where he is relating the history of the Earls of Albemarle, for which the close rolls, &c. undoubtedly afford very excellent materials. One example, from p. 30, will be as much as we can afford space to exhibit. We give the Latin literatim, preceded by the whole of the results which Mr. Poulson has drawn therefrom.

"In the 16th King John, A.D. 1216; the King confirmed to him all the lands which descended to him by his mother:

"I. Dei grat' Sciatis q'd reiddim' Will'o de Alba Mara totam t'ram suam in Angl' que eum h'r'ditarie c'tingit exp'te mat'is sue p' sic q' nich' de ear' exitib' v'l p'fectib' recipiat pruisq'm accepit in ux' Avelina' filia' Rici de Munfichet' et cu' ip'am despo'sav'it totam t'ram p'dcam cu' omnib' p'tin' suis ple

narie ei reddemus salva filie comit Baudewin' q'id com' genuit [ex] mie ip'ius Willi' t'ra q' id B. dedit ei de ead' t'ra ad se maritandam q' ei dare potuit s'c'd'm c'suetudinem Angl'. Insup' et ip'm quietu clamavim' de toto residuo finis que mat' sua nob'cum fecit p' t'ra sua h'nda p't obitu' p'dc'i B. de & toto relevio q' nob' dare debuit p' t'ra pred'ca h'nda. Omnes et boves vaccas 't oves quos balli n'r'i de t'ra sua cep'u't p'q' t'ra illa in manus n'ras devenit in usus n'ros c'r'sum est ei reddi faciem' et p't'ea redditu xl. marc in maritagio cu' p'd'ca Avelina ei assignari faciemus."

Now, we shall not stop to point out the almost numberless errors here committed in the abbreviated Latin words, which are to be carried to the account of the Hull typographer: but, merely asking by the way, why Mr. Poulson thought it desirable to make a bad imitation of the Record contractions at all-we beg further to inquire of him, as an historian, why he starves his English readers with the general

statement that in 1216 King John confirmed to the Earl all the lands which descended to him by his mother; and leaves them to decypher from his hieroglyphical extracts the additional information:-1. that the lands were those she held in England; 2. that they were restored on the condition of his taking to wife a lady of the King's nomination, viz. Aveline daughter of Richard Montfichet (a fact of some little importance in the history of a family); 3. that there is a special saving to William's halfsister, the daughter of Earl Baldwin, of the land which that Earl had given her, in promotion of marriage, as the custom of England enabled him to do ; 4. moreover that the King remitted the whole unpaid residue of the fine due from William's mother on the recovery of her lands after Earl Baldwin's death, and also all the relief due from William for having them; 5. that the King restored all the cattle and sheep that had been taken from the land by his bailiffs; 6. and lastly, that, to crown the royal bounty, the King gave him, in marriage with Aveline, a rent or pension of forty marks. This document is a good example of the valuable information which the Record Commission has made accessible, but which authors like Mr. Poulson, and printers like Mr. Brown, instead of developing, cover with an almost im penetrable mist of obscurity and error. Had Mr. Poulson given his country readers the particulars accurately in plain English, a mere marginal reference to the Record would have been sufficient, and his printer would have been spared a task beyond his powers, that of imitating with his inadequate types documentary evidence which had been already printed in facsimile at the public expense.

It is not, however, in these documents only, that we have to quarrel with the inaccuracy both of printer and author. The proper names are perpetually misspelt, whether they belong to the subjects discussed, or the authorities cited; thus we have Albermarle, Brever, de Rooss, Hawisia, Wann Fitz Gerold, Lady Ann Cleaves, &c. Among old authors, Odericus Vitalis, and Guil Gemetricensis; among modern, Du Carel, Maddox, Nicholas, Nicholls, Ayloff[e],

Whittaker, Sir William Ellis, &c.; and as titles of books, Archæol, Liber Niger Scaccaria, Vetusta testamenta, 1780, Rymer's Feodera;-of MSS., Cott. Claudius CV.; No. 6070, Harlein; Rubeus Liber Feoderum. All these continually repeated, with innumerable misprints of other words, may be gathered from a few pages of the Introduction.

In proof that the same carelessness extends through the work, we need only refer to the mandate of the Lord High Admiral Buckingham in p. 201, and the epitaph of Sir Francis Boynton in p. 209.

In p. 33 our Magazine for June 1836, is quoted respecting a very curious piece of needlework, which "Mr. Doubleday exhibited," where it is not mentioned. It should have been stated that the Society of Antiquaries have subsequently published a facsimile engraving of this piece of work in their Vetusta Monumenta, and that it is supposed to have part of a surcoat, or other housings, of the Earl of Albemarle who lived in the reign of Henry III.

Besides the preliminary matter, the first part contains the parishes of Atwick, Barmston, and Ulram, with their dependent hamlets. At p. 241 we are sorry to observe a deficiency in that department in which Mr. Dade was strongest. We allude to a pedigree of Osbaldiston, which, instead of being brought down to the present day, is apparently in the same state in which Mr. Dade left it.

At Barmston is a very fine sepul. chral effigy, which has been usually ascribed to Sir Martin de la See, who died in 1494 (Plate) or in 1497 (p. 210). The person intended is the same, we presume, who was knighted by the Earl of Northumberland, in Scotland, in 1482 (Pedigree, p. 197), and who made himself conspicuous in attempt ing to oppose the landing of Edward the Fourth at Ravenspurn in 1471. (Chronicle edited by Mr. Bruce for the Camden Society.) The effigy, however, is not of this age, but of the reign of Henry IV. resembling that of William Phelip Lord Bardolph, K.G. in Stothard's Monumental Effigies. The

engraving of the monument, prepared for Mr. Dade in 1784, is by no means the worst of his plates; but the effigy is sufficiently fine to have deserved a careful front view.

In p. 206 some doubt is expressed with regard to the meaning of Dominus prefixed to the names of the clergy in former times; and after the quotation of several discordant writers, it is concluded that "after all, perhaps it is merely synonimous with the term Reverend used in the present day." We should say that without question it was given to those who had not attained the degree of magister, as it is in the university of Cambridge at the present day. We believe the title Sir prefixed to the names of priests in the poems of Chaucer, and in English documents of still earlier date, to be equivalent with it.

To part from the work with such commendation as we can bestow, it may be said that materials of considerable value are here for the first time presented to the world; and we trust that greater care will be expended in the editing of the subsequent portions of the volume.

We have not been favoured with a sight of the second part of this History.

The History of Banbury (in Oxfordshire), including copious Historical and Antiquarian Notices of the Neighbourhood. By Alfred Beesley. 8vo. WE are always pleased when the history of any subdivision of a county is entered on with proper antiquarian zeal, aided by industry, research, and competent education, and when the author has an intimate local knowledge of the district he describes. Such a one is likely to afford us a close and particular, not a bird's eye view of his subject, nor should we quarrel with him if occasionally he dwelt on minutiæ to something like excess. The neighbourhood of Banbury comprises the northern portion of the county of Oxford, bordering on Northamptonshire, and is replete with vestiges of occupation by the Celtic tribe, Dobuni, and by the conquering legions of Imperial Rome.

Robert Goushill, but corrected by the K

The Greek writers call the Dobuni Δοβουνοι and Βοδουνοι; we are bewil dered in the choice of etymologies which are offered for this word, and would suggest that it is derived from bód, domus-and dunum, collis, two Celtic terms, which, when combined in the plural, would imply the dwell. ings among the hills-a conjecture fully justified by the numerous earthworks which crown the eminences about Banbury. We are little satisfied with the derivatives which have been suggested for Banbury itself. We suspect that something of the old title of the district lurks in the word, and that of Bodunbyrig-Saxonicé-for the town of the Dobuni, or Bodovvol, a very easy metonymy may have formed Banbury: we shall notice another derivation in the sequel.

Portions of the parish of Banbury are, it appears, in Northamptonshire Grimsbury, and Nethercot; it is probable that an ancient earth-work gave to Grimsbury its name-such defences have often the term Grim or Grime applied to them. Stukeley observes that the word implies the witches' work. As many Roman roads and other great constructions are ascribed to the operation of the devil-we need not remind our readers of the longdrawn ancient trench and vallum on Newmarket Heath, the Devil's Dyke, as one of numerous examples of the application of that term-just in the same way the Saxon gpima, venefica, a witch, is applied to various old defences, and this we apprehend is the true origin of the name given to the great Roman rampire between the forths in Scotland, Graham's Dike, and not from " one Graham, a valiant Scot, who signalised himself by breaking through it," or from the Grampian Hills in its neighbourhood. The Rollrich stones, seated on a chain of hills near Banbury, are a fine example of that primitive style of temple building, used by the Celtic tribes, of which Stonehenge, as we have elsewhere observed, presents but a more finished specimen. Dr. Stukeley derives the name from Rhol drwyg, the wheel or

*

*There is a Grims Ditch or Dyke in Hants, Wilts, and Dorset: see Sir R. C. Hoare's Ancient Wilts.-Edit.

+ Review of Archæolog. in Gent. Mag. for Dec. p. 630.

circle of the Druids, or from Roilig, in the old Irish, the church of the Druids. Is it not, as we have considered Banbury to be, a term compounded by the Saxons in reference to the ancient appropriation of the structure? and does not Rollrich imply, Rhol, the circle or circular temple, Ric, of the region or kingdom? it must not be forgotten that a detached rude obeliscal stone is called the King Stone to this day. This stone was surely the altar; the five stones, called the five knights, a sepulchral cromlech. For just as we bury near our churches, these sacred inclosures were chosen by the earliest worshippers as a proper locality near which to inter their dead. The sixth chapter of the first book of Samuel affords us a striking example of a single stone forming a marked place for sacrifice: "and the cart came into the field of Joshua the Bethshemite, and stood where there was a great stone, and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine, a burnt-offering to the Lord."*

We extract Mr. Beesley's interesting account of the Rollrich stones :

"These stones are eleven miles southwest from Banbury, on the top of the range of hills just mentioned, which marks the boundary between the table land of these parts of Oxfordshire and the great Vale of Warwickshire, and formed the extreme frontier of the territory of the Dobuni towards that of the Carnabii. The principal stones form a circle, the diameter of which from north to south is 107 feet, and that from east to west 104 feet. The area is now planted with fir trees. The original number of stones in this circle appears to have been about sixty. This very nearly corresponds with the present number, but from mutilations and the effects of time, many of the stones are now almost levelled with the ground. There are at present only twenty-eight which rise more than one foot above the soil; and of these

only ten exceed four feet in height. The highest stone (which is marked a in the ground plan above) stands 23° west of the north point of the area, and is seven feet four inches in height, and three feet two inches in breadth. The thickness of the stones is generally not more than fifteen inches. The best representation of them in a state less imperfect than that in which they now are, is a print in the folio edition of Camden's Britannia, printed

* 1 Sam. chap. vi. v. 13.