23 JULY 1927, Page 39

THE VICTORIA COUNTY HISTORY OF BUCKING- HAMSHIRE. Vol. IV. (St.

Catherine Press. 63s.)—Since to review any of the volumes of the Victoria County Histories in a manner adequate to its merits would require almost a whole issue of the Spectator, let it suffice to say that this one, which concludes the history of Buckinghamshire, displays all the qualities which have made the series famous— exhaustive thoroughness, accurate scholarship, and a fine feeling for what is beautiful in illustration. This final volume contains the topography, a general description, and the manorial descents of the Hundreds of Ashendon, Bucking- ham and Newport, all executed by various competent hands, together with a sketch of the whole county's political and military history by the Rev. F. W. Ragg. The wayfarer cannot take this book about with him (it weighs over seven pounds), but in winter evenings he can dig out of it a score of charming and antiquarianly interesting rambles among the bewildering criss-cross paths of the Chiltern uplands or the Vale of Aylesbury. Let him buy the book and see what joys lie in. quiet wait, for him in the sweet brooding peace of Brill, at. Long Crendon with its fifteenth-century Court House and exquisite. Nutley Abbey, or try to get sight of Lavendon Grange, and, if he cannot, console and refresh himself beneath the thatched roof of the seventeenth-century `Hit or Miss Inn: