CAMBRIDGESHIRE INSCRIPTIONS
Our ancient parish churches, in their inscribed monuments, slabs and brasses and their heraldic glass, contain much material for history that needs in most cases more attention than it has received. A valiant and scholarly effort on the part of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and its editor, Dr. W. M. Palmer, to make the material for that county accessible deserves notice. Their fine quarto of Monumental Inscriptions and Coats of Arms fromCambridgeshire (Cambridge: Bowes, 30s.) presents the collections made by John Layer in 1682 and by William Cole—the clerical friend of Horace Walpole, whose diary of a visit to Paris was printed recently— between 1742 and 1782. The text, notes and indexes fill some :300 pages, and there are fifty-one plates of coats of arms. - The editor and his friends have verified the old memoranda by reference to the churches, and they find that a very large number of inscriptions andheraldie coats have been lost since Cole's time. Cole...hiniseff had no scruple about buying old church glass from dishonest glaziers ; he knew of one rogue who despoiled Ely Cathedral, apparently without let or hindrance. Our churches 'are'better kept nowadays, but many inscribed floor-slabs are Tieing gradually worn away by the feet of wor- shippers, and it would be well if a printed record of them all could be made. The work so admirably done for Cambridge- shire, up to about 1780, should be put in hand for other districts.
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