CURRENT LITERATURE.
A History of London. By W. J. Loftie, B.A., F.S.A. Supplement to the First Edition. (Edward Stanford.)—This little book is intended as an appendix to the first edition of the History of London, reviewed in our columns last summer. It contains the history of the way in which the vast estates of the Duke of Westminster came into possession of his family. From this it would appear that the Grosvenors in London are like the Hapsburgs in Europe : "Bella gerunt, alii ; tu, felix Austria ! nube "; and like the Hapsburgs, what they have got by the aid of Venus, they have a way of keeping. The boundaries of the Grosvenor estate are still the same as the boundaries of the estate of Mary Davies, who was married in 1676 at the age of 11 to Sir Richard Grosvenor, aged 19. This family episode is followed by a sketch of the "History of London Trade," which is compressed into the same space, and is about as valuable and useful as such a sketch could be expected to be. Then follows :Nell-known view of London seen from the Surrey side in 1710, and a map of the Grosvenor estate in 1723. We see that Mr. Loftie has a list of
additions and corrections, and states that he has "endeavoured to profit by the newspaper criticisms which he had seen." His endeavours have apparently not been successful, so far as our criticisms were con- cerned, as his hideous blunders about the present government of London pointed oat by us, and subsequently in a letter to the Times by Mr. Firth this year, still remain uncorrected.
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