8 MAY 1886, Page 23

Architecture in Relation to Parish Churches. By the Rev. H.

H. Bishop, M.A. (S.P.C.K.)—Mr. Bishop, besides his introduction, gives DB seven chapters on various styles of Church architecture that have prevailed in this country. He begins with the "Churches of Roman Britain" (of which there is probably one surviving example at Brixworth, near Northampton) ; then we are told about the "First English Churches," and then brief accounts of the Norman Ecclesi- astical buildings, the "Transition," Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. Finally, comes a chapter on "Revolution and Restoration." This is an interesting volume, with which we have only one fault to find. This concerns the illustrations. They are plentiful enough, numbering more than a hundred. But they are scattered with a most provoking disregard of the subject-matter about which they are meant to enlighten us. Even references to the pages on which they are described are commonly not given. Often they are not described at all; in fact, the term " illustration " is misapplied. One cannot help thinking that the publishers have been using up plates that happened to be in hand, without much regard to appropriate- ness.----Along with this volume may be mentioned the "eleventh edition" of the Companion to the Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, by M. B. Bloxam (Bell and Sons), a learned work on vestments.