Records of Yarlington. By T. E. Rogers. (Elliot Stock.)—The Chancellor
of the Diocese of Bath and Wells shows in this little volume, the first form of which was a lecture, that the history of a country village need not of necessity be Dryasdustish, and need hardly even be parochial. Yarlington, in Somerset, is Mr. Rogers's " own village " in more senses than one, and although it is not specially remarkable in many respects—it covers an area of about twelve hundred acres, and contains a population of about two hundred persons, while the only " natural curiosity " it can boast of tie " a hole, swallet, or chasm, into which a winter brook discharges itself, and no mortal can say where the water again issues forth " —its history is typical, and is told in a most interesting fashion. The vicissitudes of the Manor of Yarlington are well worth studying, and whoever wishes to read a romance of real property should read the story of " Madam Joan Berkeley : her Trials and Triumphs." As, moreover, that eccentric politician and practical joker, the Duke of Leeds, who, as Lord Carmarthen, was Pitt's Foreign Secretary between 1783 and 1791, was connected with Yarlington, Mr. Rogers has a great deal to say of him that is entertaining, if not specially edifying.
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