Before the Conquest ; or, English Worthies in the Old
English Period. By W. H. Davenport Adams. (Nimmo.)—Mr. Adams tells, with no inconsiderable amount of help from Mr. Freeman, among others, the story of Alfred the Great, Dunstan, Harold, and. Stigand. How far the book is other than a compilation we cannot say ; we recognize passages here and there, and Mr. Adams makes his acknowledgments general, a plan which is not fair to his readers, or to those from whom he quotes, or to himself. We cannot but think that every passage ought to be accompanied with an exact reference to the source from which it is derived. Apart from this consideration, the book is a good one. Mr. Adams certainly knows where to look for the right materials, and how he is to put them together. He gives us a clever and spirited rendering of stories which it is almost impossible for Englishmen to hear too often.
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