14 MAY 1910, Page 25

The History and Antiquity of Southampton. By John Speed, M.D.

Edited by Elinor R. Aubrey. (Cox and Sharland, Southampton.)—This volume is published by the Southampton Record Society. Dr. Speed, who was born in 1703, was educated at Merchant Taylors' 'and St. John's, Oxford; settled in Southampton, where his father and grandfather had practised as physicians ; and died in 1781. (He was great-great-grandson of the chronicler, John Speed.) His record of the place, its manners and customs, &c., is, we need hardly say, full of interest, not the less so because he seems to have been of very conservative ways of thinking, fiercely opposing schemes for anew water-supply and fresh paving the town. Miss Aubrey's introduction makes excellent reading.