The craft and art of woodwork was distinguished in England
by a, great sweetness and sincerity. It had its roots in the soil as firmly as the timber hewn for the carver's hand. True, its trophies are of a perishable and easily destructible kind; but this admirable volume is a surprising revelation of what wealth of well-wrought beauty is still stored up, not only in the great minsters, but in the little churches of the East and West of the country. Messrs. Howard and Crossley, in English Church Woodwork (Batsford, 35s.), place their period between 1250 and 1550. While admitting that fourteenth-century carving is loveliest " leaf by leaf," Mr. Howard firmly defends fifteenth-century work, like the vinetrails of some churches in the South-west, because of charm of composition and -general decorative effect. He writes as an enthusiast, with intimate and searching knowledge, and with a fine sense of the variations caused by local conditions in the Midlands, the East, the South-West, and Wales. Porches, doors, and roofs are studied in their wonderful variety. Altars, testers, sedilia receive their due attention. Roods and lofts natu- rally require an intricate dissertation : some are massive, -some light as a row of lilies. Tombs, chests, hutches, shrines, font-covers, pulpits are shown, all charged with imagery. `The- illustrations are remarkable for their number, their .clarity, and their charm.
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