THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE LIBRARY: BEING A CLASSIFIED COLLECTION OF THE CHIEF CONTENTS OF THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE FROM 1731 TO 1868. EDITED BY GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A. ENGLISH TOPOGRAPHY, PART XIV. (WORCESTERSHIRE—YORKSHIRE.) EDITED BY F. A. MILNE, M.A. LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1902. WITH the two counties of Worcestershire and Yorkshire in this volume the county collections proper from the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE are finished, there remaining only the London items to complete the entire series. Yorkshire is so interesting a county that it is not surprising this volume should be particularly valuable. Its wealth of notes in matters of church history, of family history, heraldry and genealogy; its details of local scenery; its contemporary record of facts connected with places visited or residential, and of discoveries in the fields, such, for instance, as those at Towton (p. 342), where the great battle was fought, gives a place to this collection not easily over-valued. Of course, there are errors, wrong deductions, fanciful ascription of old buildings to the "Saxon" period or the Roman period, allusions to the Druids, who are held to be responsible for a ring discovered, and so on. But these are due to the times when the notes were written, and will be readily recognised and accounted for by all students using these volumes. No attempt has been made to alter the original, except by omitting altogether some fanciful writing when its place in the text did not disturb the sense. References to plates are preserved because of the use these may be to students who wish to refer to the original. Altogether, the object of these collections has been strictly kept in mind-namely, to get together all the important contributions for the use of the student, and leave them to tell their own tale. Of the destruction of monuments of historical value there is, alas ! the usual number of examples. That at Bromsgrove, the tomb of Sir John Talbot, defaced for purposes of the Shrewsbury peerage case, is, of course, wanton destruction (p. 33). The warning note as to the ivy and trees which were undermining Hadsor Church in 1833 (p. 63) is not without use at the present moment. No one has done more for the cause of preserving our buildings by urging the destruction of useless ivy than Mr. St. John Hope, and he will |