THE PILGRIM'S WAY: A NEW EDITION.* "Summer is icummin in
Lhude sing cucku Groweth seed and blowoth mead And springs the woode flea."
Tins was the inward voice that through the middle ages called men from counting-house or convent, from mill or from monastery, to go on pilgrimage to Canterbury, to spend long merry days in the open air, and to endure all the delightful deprivations of dilatory travel. So strong, Chaucer tells us, was this vernal call of the Open Road that in the season when "Small fowlee maken melodie " pilgrims flocked "from every shires ende,"—
"The holy blissful martyr for to seek
That thorn hath holpen when that they were sicke."
"Julia Cartwright's" excellent book on the Pilgrim's Way, of which the present volume is a new edition, traces the road taken by these cheerful devotees on their leisurely journey. It tells us of the shrines they visited, of the inns where they were entertained; how they "lingered at the village fairs, and stopped at every town to see the sights and hear the news," and how great was their company.
"At every town they came through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking of the dogs after them, they made more noise than if the King came with all his clarions."
Then we read how, when the goal was reached to which this junketing progress had led, their mood changed. Overawed by the solemn and stately splendour of the great cathedral, the pilgrims stood "half amazed," and their tour round the grave grey aisles became a pilgrimage indeed.
All the places of interest along the " way " are described in the present volume, and many of the scenes which met the wandering eyes of the pilgrims as they journeyed are eepresented in Mr, Hallam Murray's drawings, These last, though pleasant where the subject is architectural, are not very successful when landscape is attempted. The cover
design in which the "badge," worn by the pilgrims to Canter- bury, is represented is particularly happy.
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