THE HISTORY OF A YORKSHIRE PARISH.* THOSE who have never

taken any special interest in =ham- logical research and speculation, may find it difficult to enter into the enthusiasm of a man who could give the leisure hours of eighteen years to the compilation of a volume devoted to the history and antiquities of a single parish. As a rule, indeed, the fine frenzy of the specialist in any department of intellectual labour is somewhat incomprehensible to those who are not pos- sessed by it. They have an intense belief in what they call general information, but which might be more correctly described as general want of information, and they are apt to regard the man who, like Mr. Browning's " grammarian," spends life in toiling in one narrow field that he may reap its largest possible harvest, as but a poor creature at the best. The antiquarian specialist has come in for rather more than his fair share of the general disdain ; he is hardly ever referred to in popular litera- ture without some disrespectful allusion to Dryasdust ; and the general reader finds it difficult to believe that the record of his labours can be anything else than fiat, stale, and unprofitable.

Still, in the face of their prevalent prejudice, and in spite of some serious defects in the book itself, which interfere largely with the reader's pleasure, we can honestly say that Mr. Simp-

son's .1ristory of the Parish of Add contains much that will be interest, not merely to those who have an acquaintance with

the locality or a general taste for antiquarianism, but to all in whom the historical instinct has been developed, and the habit of reverence for the past confirmed.

As a matter of fact, archaeology is, year by year, becoming a more serviceable handmaid to history. Researches such as those recorded iu this elaborate monograph are local in range,.

but their results are far from being merely local in significance. The Archceologia Adelensis aspires to be more than the history

of a single parish ; it is intended to be a contribution to the history of England, an endeavour to aid in the honourable labour of pushing still farther back the boundary-line which separates the realm of positive knowledge from the outlying re- gion of speculation and hypothesis. The parish of Ada and the district of which it is the centre are remarkably rich in relics of the past, particularly of that period, concerning which our verifiable knowledge is so limited, when our island was first .peopled by

settlers from the far East. There is an actual embarras do richesse, and the volume before us affords evidence that, con-

sciously or unconsciously, Mr. Simpson has been rather over- whelmed by the abundance of his material. The table of con- tents has a most orderly and systematic appearance, but in the body of the work the cosmos frequently degenerates into a chaos ; and though, as we have said, the volume contains much that is both valuable and interesting, the value and interest are

* Archtcologia AdelensiA ; or, a History of the Parish of Adel, in Ma WeRt Riding of Yorkshire. by Henry 'Trail S4npeon, M.A., late llootor of Adel. Loudon : W. B. Allen and Co. 1879.

inherent in the matter, rather than in the form. The work is divided into three parts, the first dealing with the name, topo- graphy, and antiquities of the parish of Add, and with the his- torical memorials of its ancient church ; the second, with the " ancient religions, and their bearing upon the antiqui- ties of Adel ;" and the third being entirely devoted to an ex- amination of the very curious and interesting symbolical

sculptures of the exterior and interior of the church, Early in the first part, one of the prominent faults of the book becomes clearly discernible. Mr. Simpson, like most enthusiasts, had so ardent a desire to treat every point as it

arose in a thoroughly exhaustive manner, that he entirely lost his sense of proportion and literary perspective. Far too much space is accordingly devoted to an exposition and discussion of various etymological hypotheses, and we grow rather tired of long quotations from the writings of theorists, whose views the author at once proceeds to show are, for various reasons, un- satisfactory or untenable. Not only in this part, but throughout the book, the proportion of quoted to original matter is far too great, for though many of the quotations arc exceedingly inter- esting in themselves, they have the frequent disadvantage of leading the reader into by-paths, and interfering unpleasantly with the continuity of exposition. In most cases, the author's purpose would have been as well, or better, served if the quota- tions had been summarised in the writet's own language, the authorities being given in foot-notes, for the benefit of those who might desire to consult them.

Mr. Simpson has, we think, succeeded iu 'establishing his con- clusions that the name "Adel " has a religious significance, that its most probable meaning is " the powerful God," or " the power of God," that it was originally conferred by the early Phamician settlers, and that the parish of Adel once formed the centre of a very remarkable district, conspicuous for its religious character. This district, which was known by the name of Elmete (also of religious significance), is described by a tradition still current as having once extended from Selby to Skipton, and in every part of it, but more particularly in Add and its immediate neigh- bourhood, are to be found numerous traces of the religious worship and rites of heathenism, as they were carried on up- wards of 3,000 years ago. The chapter entitled, " Ancient Re- ligions, and their Bearing on the Antiquities of Adel," which is devoted to an examination of these remains, is by far the longest and most important in the book, and would have been also the most valuable, if its value had not been largely -diminished by Mr. SiMpson's eccentric method of treatment. The mere facts, the descriptions of the relics of the sacrificial, phallic, and other forms of ancient worship, cannot be alto- gether denuded of their interest ; but that interest has been re- duced to a minimum by vague and ineffective presentation, while the literary effect has been completely destroyed by the author's provoking habit of sandwiching a page of antiquarianism between a couple of pages of dogmatic theology. Mr. Simpson seems to have determined not to allow his readers to forget that he was a, clergyman as well as an archaeologist, and though no one will blame.him for the determination, we think his most sympathetic reader will feel that it has been carried out rather' ruthlessly, and that the interjected sermons are both too fre- quent and too long. When we wish to know all that Mr. Simpson has to tell us about the sanguinary worship for which, in forgotten ages, were erected the rude, sacrificial altars that .exist in Adel to-day, it is rather trying to find, at the very threshold of the inquiry, no less than five pages devoted to a contrast between the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and to an ex- position of the doctrine of the Atonement, largely compiled from Faber's work on the Origin of Expiatory Sacrifice. The theology and the archaeology of the book are badly mixed, and do not present an attractive compound. Some years ago was published an ingeniously wrought-out little work, the anony- mous author of which attempted to prove, whether seriously or not, wo cannot say, that Christianity is but a development of nature-worship. Mr. Simpson, whose sincerity cannot be doubted, strove to show that all the forms of nature-worship were corruptions of the doctrines of revelation. In one of the

sermonic bits interpolated into his description of the phallic. remains, he says :- " Thus wore the two groat doctrines of man's redemption established' and handed down to posterity—the two great doctrines of Atonement and Regeneration—handed down to us by the Church of God ; at one time in peril of extinction, except in the family of Noah ; through him bequeathed to the Chinch of a later day, which zealously pro- pounded them to the world, as the Scriptures testify ; and finally- resulting in the Gospel of our Saviour, under the two forms of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. To destroy these doctrines, or, or what is worse, to corrupt them, would be the object of Satan. We have soon how ho succeeded with the ordinance of sacrifice ; wo now contemplate the fact of his having so done also with the Evangelical doctrine of regeneration. He reduced it to a form of worship essentially earthly, devilish, sensual. (James iii., 15.) Instead of setting forth the neces- sity of the regeneration of man's heart and nature, it taught only a system of generation carnal, and to a degree nnspiritual. Its symbols became obscene, and void of the least purifying tendency."

Mr. Maurice and many others have shown how much material of permanent value may be got from a serious study of the

religions of the world in their relation to Christianity ; but padding of this kind is neither instructive nor edifying,—it is simply tiresome. We are never allowed to escape from it, and its presence completely spoils not only the chapter of which we have been speaking, but two other chapters, devoted to descrip- tions (accompanied by capital etchings) of the very remarkable sculptures of Add parish church, all deeply interesting, and many, we should think, almost unique. We can generally follow Mr. Simpson's hypothetical explanations of their sym-

bolism, aud even where his interpretations seem to be strained, we differ with hesitation from so thorough and loving a student. We must, however, confess our surprise that a man of Mr. Simp- son's evident ingenuity and fertility of. resource should have boon

nonplussed by the curious lino of sculptured heads which forms one of the mouldings of the chancel-arch. From the mouth of each a monstrous figure ie being vomited, and if we adopt the very probable hypothesis that these monsters represent evil thoughts and impure feelings, the symbolical teaching of the moulding seems plainly to point to the purging of the heart which should precede an approach to the holy table. Our description of this book has been very inadequate, but

such inadequacy has been inevitable, for its treasures of re- search are arranged not scientifically, as in a museum, but pell- mell, as in a curiosity-Shop. Still, the student who is not re- pelled by the formless arrangement and expatiatory style will find much that cannot fail to interest him, and the general reader will pick up crumbs of entertainment and information here and there ; but except as a mere collection of materials for future classification, the work must be pronounced a compara- tive failure.