THE PLACE-NAMES OF WORCESTERSHIRE. By A. Mawer and F. M.
Stenton, in collaboration with F. T. S. Houghton. (Cambridge University Press. 20s.)-Since the late Professor Skeat showed, in his epoch-making monograph on Cambridgeshire place-names, how they should be studied with full regard both to documentary evidence and to etymo- logical laws, the subject has developed steadily in England. And the English Place-Name Society is now concentrating the efforts of many workers in its excellent volumes, the fourth of which has now appeared. For Worcestershire the editors have been most fortunate in securing the help era local expert, Mr. Houghton, for Worcester topography .bristles with diffi- culties and many Worcester place-names are very 'obscure. The result is a most elaborate and interesting book. The names are grouped, as in the ease of Buckinghani, Bedford,' and Huntingdon, under the old Domesday hundreds, so as to preserve the early associations of each place, but a good index makes reference easy. The editors show in their introduction how a close analysis of the older place-names confirms the historical tradition-that the district was settled compara- tively late by the West Saxon tribe known as " Hwicce,' and that it was afterwards overrun by Angles from Mercia, while it long remained an isolated region, out of close touch with the rest of England.
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