CURRENT LITERATURE.
A Pictorial and Historical Handbook to Warwickshire (Ward and Look) is just what it pretends to be. Without entering into compe- tition with large and learned county histories, it gives fairly exhaus- tive notices of the antiquities of that most interesting of our Midland counties, describing its principal literary and historical associations, its chief towns and villages, its manufactures and industries, and the resorts of tourists and travellers. It is fortunate in having three such subjects as Stratford-on-Avon and the proud castles of Warwick and Kenilworth as pieces de resistance; but the anonymous author of the book has taken equal pains in his account of Stoneleigh Abbey, of Leamington, of fair Coventry, with its three tall spires and its many medieval memories of religions guilds and miracle-plays, of Birmingham, with its factories, of Tamworth, and its historic castle, &o. Many of the rural parish churches are well described; and, although the work is comprised in one duodecimo volume, yet it is illustrated with nearly one hundred wood engravings, some of them of high merit, though others are hard and stiff. It strikes us that the four coloured plates had better have been left uncoloured.
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