We hate received three volumes of the Victoria History of
the counties of England, Edited by William Page (A. Constable and eo., .21 lls. 6d. per voL) We will mention first The County of ,Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Vol. III. The editor, following the usual arrangement adopted in this great work, has now reached what in the " County Histories " of old time used to be the !main substance of the book, the account of the several parishes. !hese are dealt with by the "Hundreds," of which sixteen are included ; to these must be added the "Liberty of Havant " and the " Town and County of Southampton." Each parish is separately represented, the manorial descents being always a feature of the description. These are curiously interesting, to the genealogist in the first place, and in no inconsiderable degree to the general reader. It is noteworthy to see how many were the changes in almost all, except in cases where they fall into the hands of a corporation. Take the case of Meonstoke, which gives its name to a Hundred. The largest of the three manors into which it was divided was called Meonstoke Water- aund (afterwards Perrers). It belonged in 1224 to one Pain de Chaworth, then to William de Percy, but was granted in 1289 to 'ulk de Montgomery. Fulk sold it (the date here is wrong) to air John Maunsel, a priest and Chancellor of St. Paul's, who at ems time held seventy benefices. In 1263 the manor passed to Vimee de Montfort. After Evesham, it came back to the Powys. They sold it in 1268 to Robert Waterannd. This family held it, wick various complications of assignment and tenure, for more than e century. Then it escheated to the Crown, and was granted to Alice Perrers. Alice twice lost and twice regained it ; in 1381, it was sold by her husband to William of Wykeham, end he four years later granted it to Winchester College. all thin is very interesting, and we have similar narratives by scores. The other volumes are The County of Hertford, Vol. II., and The County of Shropshire, Vol. I. We cannot deal with these in detail, but we may specially direct attention to the article, written in collaboration by Professor F. Haverfield and Miss 7.1, V. Taylor, on "Romano-British Shropshire."
Wroxeter (Viroconium Corttorioruin) is, it will be remembered, one of the most remarkable of Roman sites.
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