Notes on the Old Crosses of Gloucestershire. By Charles Pooley,
F.S.A. (Longmans.)—This is an excellent monograph on a subject interesting to all students of ecclesiastical antiquities, and to Glou- cestershire men especially. It notices about eighty crosses, includ- ing some of which nothing but the tradition remains. Wherever any visible relics remain a woodcut is given, and twelve of the more import- ant structures are represented in handsome lithographs. Mr. Pooley is evidently well acquainted with his subject, and has a very pleasant, lively style of his own. A reader who did not care much about crosses would not grow weary over the book. We are reminded, of course, in the preface of the "implacable Iconoclasm of the seventeenth century ;" but the recorded acts of destruction belong rather to the indifference of the eighteenth century, and of the nineteenth before it experienced its present art-renewal. Bristol High Cross, for instance, in 1697 was restored so that no cross in the kingdom was more handsome. In 1733 it was pulled down, at the request of a citizen, who feared it would fall and crush his house. It was put up again and again removed, this time because it was an obstruction in a promenade. Finally, it was given to Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who set it up in his park. Gloucester Cross was pulled down in some town improvements, and utterly disappeared. Cirencester Cross now ornaments an avenue in Lord Bathurst's park. That of Stow- on-the-Wold has been permitted to remain because it is useful as a lamp-post. But the worst case of all is not more than forty years old. Archdeacon Rudge, Vicar of Haresfield, happened to be surveyor of roads ; and he took down the village cross to mend some ruts, the farmers being too busy to haul stone ; and yet, as we are told, he was a good classical scholar, and actually edited a county history.
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