The Story of English Towns : Plymouth. By A. L.
Salmon. (S.P.C.K. 4s. net.)—This attractive little book, well illustrated from old maps and plans and photographs, contains a short history of Plymouth, which is now celebrating the tercentenary of the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers for New England. Plymouth people are not allowed by Plympton to forget that that little town was, through its wealthy Priory, the "nurse and patron" of the "infant Plymouth." But Plymouth had become a considerable seaport by Edward the Third's day, and King John of France was brought there a captive, after Poitiers, just as Napoleon was four and a-half centuries later. London, York and Bristol alone surpassed Plymouth in population in 1377. It played a great part in the Elizabethan naval wars, and in the Civil War it held out for the Parliament when all the West Country had fallen into Royalist hands. Mr. Salmon's account of the long siege is one of the best chapters in a read- able book. In his closing pages he does not forget to mention that Sir Joshua Reynolds was born at Plympton and that Northcote, Haydon and Eastlake, all sons of Plymouth, were his schoolfellows at Plympton Grammar School. Prout was another native artist of whom Plymouth may be proud.
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