Sandringham, Past and Present. By Mrs. Herbert Jones. (Sampson Low
and Co )—It is always something of a surprise to find what a number of interesting associations there are with places of which scarcely any one beyond the neighbourhood has heard. Sandringham was known to fame before the Prince of Wales per. chased the estate. Now that every one is familiar with the house,. and it becomes worth a writer's while to tell its history, one sees that it was quite worth knowing. Elizabeth Scales, Lord Rivers (one of the victims of Richard III.), the Cobbes, the Hostes (a family from Bruges), and the Mottenx (a Hugaenot race), have successively owned the estate. One of this lest family, Peter Anthony Motteux was a man of some literary distinction ; he translated Rabelais and Don Quixote, and wrote at least one successful play, to which Dryden contributed a prologue, and in which Mrs. Bracegirdle acted. The last Motteux left the house to the Cowper family, and they sold it to the Prince for 2220,000, a sum which must represent an enormous increase in value. Mrs. Jones has filled up her volume with an account of other Norfolk places and personages. She describes Lynn, Castle Rising, Hunstanton, Great Yarmouth, &c., and tells the story of Miles Corbet, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Lord Nelson, and others. She is not, we should say, a professed antiquary, and does. not deal with her subject in a thorough and exhaustive way ; but she has made a readable book out of it, and there are some attractive illustrations.
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