2 SEPTEMBER 1905, Page 20

The Cathedrals of England and Wales. By T. Francis Bumpus.

Vol. L (T. Werner Laurie. 6s.)—Mr. Bumpus describes nine of the Cathedrals,—i.e., seven belonging to the Southern and two (Durham and Chester) to the Northern Province ; another volume, which might be conveniently made into two, is to in- clude the remainder. The book will usefully supplement any series of Cathedral handbooks with which the reader may be familiar. There is an advantage in having the subject treated comprehensively by an expert writer, though the space available for each Cathedral—something less than thirty pages on an average—is not sufficient for a detailed description. (If the twenty-four that remain are to be compressed into one volume, the average will be considerably less than half the figure given above.) Mr. Bumpus has done his work so well that we feel especial regret at his going out of his way to pen such a sentence as "zeal and devotion had, in a great measure, been stamped out by the Reformation."