Lincoln College, Oxford. By Stephen A. Warner, B.A. (Arnold Fairbairns
and Co. 6s. net.)—We already possess a perfectly satisfactory history of Lincoln College in Mr. Andrew Clark's book, published in the "College Histories" Series of Mr. Robinson. The speciality of the volume now before us is its richness of illustration. The exterior and the interior of the College are well represented, Loggan's view (1675) being given by way of con- trast. Among the memorials of College life is a highly interesting plate of facsimiles of Rectors' signatures taken from the books. Of the first eight (1420-1503), only that of Thomas Rotherham (the second founder) is preserved. Of the other twenty-five, one only (John Tatham, 1574-76) is missing. They are a useful history, so to speak, of handwriting. The narrative is pleasantly and sympathetically written. A word might have been said for Richard Michell, who raised the College to a height of academical distinction which it has never attained since his days. (It was before the time in throwing open its scholarships.) Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, and therefore Visitor, might have been mentioned. It was he who preserved for the College the "Bishops' Fellowship," an institution singular, we believe, to Lincoln,—whether for good or evil it is not for us to say. It could not have been in 1833 that the College resisted Bishop Wilberforce when he claimed jurisdiction over the Collegiate churches ; Wilberforce was made Bishop in 1848. The last of the Lincoln records is the "College Grace." The form is somewhat changed ; the after-dinner Grace has, it would seem, disappeared.
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