Fountains Abbey. By George Hodges, D.D. (John Murray. 10s. 6d.
net.)—Dr. Hodges, having had occasion to reside at Studley for some weeks, interested himself in the history of the great Benedictine Abbey near that place, and has put together its history from various sources, of which he mentions, with special obligation, the works of Mr. W. H. St. John Hope and Mr. J. R. Walbran. He has made a most readable book. When we are reminded what the House had grown to be in its latter days, we wonder no longer at the fate which on the spot seems to have been so cruel. "In Craven, the Abbey owned a hundred square miles [between sixty and seventy thousand acres] ; in the neigh- bourhood of Ripon, their lands ran in one direction for thirty uninterrupted miles." And it had much other property. Yet when it was dissolved there were but thirty-odd inmates. The mere care of these possessions must have been fatal to the monastic ideal.
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