Ancient Streets and Homesteads of England. By Alfred Rimmer. With
an Introduction by the Very Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D. (Macmillan.) —The only complaint that we have to make about this book is that there is not enough of it. It is a good-sized octavo indeed, containing more than three hundred pages, and it is adorned with one hundred and fifty illustrations, which are as pretty as anything of the kind that we have lately seen. But the subject is too vast. An average of a little more than eight pages of letterpress and not quite four illustrations to each county (not content with England, Mr. Rimmer takes in also the Isle of Man), is quite inadequate. If Mr. Rimmer would give us a volume of this kind for each county, it would be, anyhow, a tolerable instalment. Meanwhile we must be thankful for what we have. It is a book of which it is very difficult to give any adequate idea. Mr. Rimmer, though he "stops two turns," as one used to say in the old geographical games, in some favourite spot, such, for instance, as Chester, takes us hurriedly through England, describing with pen and pencil some of the most striking features of domestic architecture,—not the great houses, it will be understood, but the humble homesteads, which too often pass away without any record of their picturesqueness and interesting appearance. He takes occasion to make some admirable remarks on the duties of archi- tects. Here is an example which we cannot forbear to quote :—
"It is not too much to say of the majority of them, that if they were required to build a church in some distant county, they would consider it quite sufficient to have a plan of the churchyard and neighbouring lanes sent to them, without their having the least idea of the surrounding buildings or trees, or the outline of the neighbouring hills. Infinite pains are taken with details, but though books which treat of these are excellent and numerous, one turns in vain for any architectural work to guide him to a knowledge of what is more important,—picturesqueness."
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