The Church Treasury of History, Customs, 4•c. Edited by William
Andrews. (W. Andrews and Co. 7s. 6d.)—Mr. Andrews has collected here some seventeen papers, two being contributed by himself,— viz., "Fortified Church Towers" and "The Westminster Wax- works." Of the others we may mention Mr. W. H. Thompson's " Mediseval Pilgrimages," which gives some very curious details about this practice of our forefathers with its very curiously mixed motives ; Mr. Tyack's strange stories of "Human Skin on Church Doors" (Westminster Abbey has four specimens); and stranger still, the narratives of "Ghost Layers and Ghost Laying" which the Rev. R. Wilkins Rees has collected. The most marvellous of all is told by Mr. Rudall, of Launceston, in Cornwall, temp. Caroli II. Unfortunately the MS. got into the hands of the Rev. R. S. Hawker, of Morwenstow. Is Mr. Rees aware of the literary history of this gentleman, or is he laughing at us when he writes that "Parson Rudwall's 'Diurnal' fell by chance into Mr. Hawker's hands, and it is hardly possible that the manuscript could have received more skilful or more sympathetic attention" P As to "skilful " we have no doubt ; " sympathetic " is more open to question.—With this may be mentioned The Miracle Play in England, by Sidney M. Clarke (same pub- lishers). Mr. Clarke traces the history of this remarkable de- velopment of the religions emotions,— a history all the more interesting when we compare it with its survivals, as at Ober- Ammergau, and with the revivals which seem likely to obtain a certain success.
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