Tales of Old English Life. By William Francis Collier, LL.D.
(Nimmo, Hay, and Mitchell, Edinburgh.)—Dr. Collier, who ihi well known as the author of some excellent school-histories, has here given us, under the title of "Pictures of the Periods," six stories relating to the British, Saxon, Norman, Tudor, Stuart, and Early Georgian periods. Dr. Collier has a lively and vigorous style ; his familiarity with his subject is beyond all doubt ; on the whole, he contrives to unite with as much success as it is isom- monly given to man to attain, the useful and the ornamental. The contrast between Icilius, the Centurion, who saves the lire, and wins the hand, of a British Princess, and Squire Hazelrig, losing his money in South-Sea Stock, is sufficiently dramatic. Bat what makes Dr. Collier quote the marriage of Plantins to Pom- ponia Graeeina as an example of "intermarriage between Roman officers and British lathes" P Pomponia was certainly not British. The mention in Tacitus of her lifelong mourning after the death of Julia, daughter of Drusus, indicates her descent. :Julia was grand-daughter of Pomponia, the daughter of Pomponius Atticus, and Pomponia was almost certainly a kinswoman.
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