SOME OLD DEVON CHURCHES.
Some Old Devon Churches. By John Stabb. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 7s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Stabb gives particulars, copiously illus- trated by photographs taken by himself, of more than a hundred churches in Devonshire. He directs special attention to the chancel screens. Some details of the parts of each churck the date of building and restoration, &-c., are given. Notable monuments and curious traditions are sometimes mentioned. Among the latter, one of the strangest is that relating to the seven prebends, one attached to Chumleigh Church. An inhabitant was going to put away in the Dart seven children who had been born at one birth. The Countess of Devon stopped him on his way, and when he explained that poverty drove him to the deed, she settled a prebend on each child. At Honiton we have the inscription on the tomb of Thomas Maywood, who " practised physick and chirurgery above seventy-five years," and died in 1617 at the age of a hundred and five. His widow survived him twenty-seven years, so that the period of the two reaches the marvellous amount of a hundred' and thirty-two years. The husband was born in the early days of Henry VIII., and the widow lived to see the Commonwealth virtually established. Among the details given is that of the date of the registers,—not much fewer than half go back to the sixteenth century. There must bo an error in the statement that the register of South Pool dates from 1.284 ; and 0. Barry, vicar of Molland, who " died in 1683, aged 45 years," could hardly have " suffered for his attachment to the cause of Charles I.," who was executed when he was eleven years old.
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