23 MARCH 1907, Page 24

In the series of the "Victoria History of the Counties

of England" (A. Constable and Co., 31s. 6d. net per vol.) we have received the first volume of York and the second of Suffolk. We may call special attention in the first to the article on "Schools," the work of an expert of the highest standing in such matters, Mr. A. F. Leach ; and in the second to the account of the "Religions Houses" by the Rev. J. C. Cox, LL.D. Yorkshire is rich in schools of antiquity and repute even beyond what we should expect in so large a county. St. Peter's School, York, stands in undisputed priority, though Mr. Leach, who once spoke of it as "our oldest school," now gives that title to Canterbury School, and thinks that Rochester and St Paul's, London, may stand before St. Peter's. Beverley is nearly coeval with York, and there are important and ancient foundations at Ripon, Pontefract, Howden (which has a melancholy history of ill-treatment), Wake- field, Northallerton, Doncaster, Hull (where a satisfactory "ladder" has been contrived with the Hymers Foundation and the Hull Municipal Technical School), Rotherham, Leeds, Giggleswiek, Sedbergh (the best known of all), Pooklington, and Bradford. These are the chief, but there are many other foundations of respectable, and more than respectable, age. Mr. Leach has written, as might be expected, a most interesting and informing article. Dr. Cox, =Other expert, has the eventful story of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds to tell. Here and else- where he gives, according to his habit, a most painstaking account of his subject. We must not complain if he is monacherum part thus non titiittaW