Some Books of the Week
WHAT would not a historian give for an accurate and detailed. history of any English village, such as could only be given by the men and women whose names are decipherable in the churchyard ? Science in her wildest dreams gives us no hope of reproducing a living picture of the rural life of the past. The only approach to such a revelation comes from the men and women who have given their minds and hearts to the study of record and tradition in those corners of the country which still retain some semblance of their ancient character. _ Miss Eliza Vaughan seems, to be such a student of times past (The Essex Village in Days Gone By, Benham, Colchester, 4s. 6d.). She knows an out-of-the-way corner of Essex, has indeed passed her life there, and has access to every old clerk's register and overseer's account record in the neighbourhood. Old parishioners have told her tales of their grandfather's days and traditions of old times before them. Her little book gives at least a true outline of parochial life in rural East Anglia, with its distresses and delights, poverty and prosperity, during the last hundred and seventy years. _
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