A Book about Yorkshire. By J. S. Fletcher. (Methuen and
Co. 7s. 6d. net.)—This is just the book that lovers of English country and old associations will delight in. Mr. Fletcher is discursive, and at once interesting and entertaining. He tells us something about the monastic life, as is only right when dealing with the great religious foundations of Yorkshire. He talks about the great houses of the county, and the romances inseparably connected with them, about the "Yorkshire Castles," the "Yorkshire Folk," and "Eccentricities and Celebrities," one of whom—Mr. Carter of Lastingham—should interest our readers just now. Mr. Fletcher is illuminating on the subject of dialect, quotes poems in dialect, and gives useful little bits of vocabularies ; and his chapters on customs and folk-lore are, of course, indispensable. He has used his eyes and the historical records with judgment, and has done his best to give us a real notion of the wealth of interest and association that lies in the great shire. The drawings have not attracted us very much. " Wharncliffe Woods," however, is pretty, and " Swale- dale " and "Old Whitby" effective, as is also " Bursnall." The reader, whether he is a Yorkshireman or not, or whether he misses his own locality, may not get a better all-round book of the three Ridings.—Yorkshire Vales and Wolds. By Gordon Home. (A. and C. Black. 7s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Home has a great feeling for the breadth and dignity of Yorkshire landscapes, and has illustrated his brief descriptions of South Yorkshire with some beautiful drawings. Haworth, with its background of moor, and a summer landscape on the welds, Kirkstall and Hornses, Mere, make pretty pictures, and be has striven to do justice, with some success, to Patrington Church. Mr. Home admires the Decorated and Per- pendicular styles, and resents, we think with justice, the strictures made on the western towers of Beverley Minster. Certainly we have to thank Decorated Gothic for something very beautiful in Hedon, Howden, and Patriugton, and even the modern church of Doncaster, and the Perpendicular builders for St. Mary's, Beverley. No, we cannot allow any adverse criticism on the Decorated style —think of the Percy tomb, to mention only one monument— or on Perpendicular towers, and Mr. Home must be careful himself of what he says about Early English. His sketch of South Yorkshire must necessarily be scrappy, but his selection is no doubt the best possible. His drawings—and his warm colouring is admirably reproduced—are indisputably so. "Beverley Minster" and " Bootham Bar" show his architectural colour and detail, and "Sheffield at Night" does justice to Sheffield—at night.
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