became seriously aware, and in the volume before us were induced to issue the account of Cambridgeshire separately, as soon as it was printed, without waiting to complete it with Cheshire and Cornwall, as they had intended; and they were so convinced that the publication of the reports of the counties singly would, in several respects, be the more eligible mode, that they now propose to adopt it through the remainder of the work. Moreover, the materials for Cheshire being numerous, they found themselves, contrary to the original plan, under the necessity of extending the account so as to close the volume without proceeding to Cornwall. By way of apology, they say that they flatter themselves that when its importance is considered, it will not be thought that a greater portion of space has been allotted to the subject than it is intitled to.' With respect to ourselves, we feel disposed to commend this deviation; and had the alteration from the original plan been adopted still earlier, the accounts of some of the preceding counties would have been more complete. We likewise think that the compilers might as well deviate from the alphabetical mode of proceeding, and publish the account of the several counties with separate pages, in the order most convenient to themselves; since by this method they will be able to go on with less liability of interruption, and the purchaser may afterward arrange the parts according to the letters of the alphabet, or in any other way which he may deem best. The volume before us is undoubtedly very creditable to the industry and exertions of Messrs. Lysons; the various articlès of information being numerous, and the particulars under each being both interesting and important. We cannot, however, say that we judge so favourably of the arrangement, which appears to us confused and unnatural. The several heads of information in the account of Cambridgeshire constitute the following list; which we present to our readers to give them some idea of the contents of the work, and also to enable them to form a judgment for themselves with respect to the order in which the particulars are disposed.. Historical Events. Ancient Inhabitants and Government. Ancient and Modern Division of the County. Ecclesiastical Divisions and Jurisdiction. Monasteries, Colleges, and Hospitals. Market Towns, &c. Population. Principal Land-owners at various Periods, and principal extinct Families. Nobility of the County, and Places which have given Title to any Branch of the Peerage. Noblemen's Seats. Baronets, extinct and existing. Principal Gentry, and their Seats. Geographical and Geological Description of the County. Produce. Natural History. Rivers and Navigable Canals. Roads. Manufactures. Antiquities. British and Roman Roads, Ancient Roads, and Stations. Ancient Church Architecture. In this arrangement, the articles relative to antient and modern subjects, and the military, civil, and ecclesiastical departments, are mixed together in a manner which we should nor have expected from gentlemen who have had considerable experience in compilations of the kind. That the arrangement, however, has been deliberately adopted, and is intended to be followed through the remainder of the work, may be inferred from the same being observed in the account of Cheshire: with the additional heads of Seats of Baronets; Antient Families, extinct and existing; Gentlemen's Seats; Rare Plants; Mineral Springs; Roman Antiquities; and peculiar Customs. It strikes us that, if the disposition of the subjects were in the following or some such order, the volumes would be perused with greater interest; and we therefore recommend it to the consideration of the compilers: 1. Etymology of the present name, and Antient Geography of the County, including its antient names, and that of the district to which it belonged. 2. Military History. 3. Civil History, comprehending the several changes which the province may have undergone with respect to its jurisdiction and government. 4. History of the several principal Families, and descent of Property. 5. Modern Geography of the County. 6. Market-Towns. 7. Population. 8. Rivers and Navigable Canals. 9. Roads. 10. Manufactures. 11. Geological Description and Produce of the County. 12. Natural History, comprehending rare Plants and Mineral Springs, &c. 13. Present Nobility, Baronets, and Gentry, with their Seats. 14. Ecclesiastical Divisions and Jurisdiction. 15. Antiquities, military, civil, and ecclesiastical. 16. Customs. 17. Parochial Topography. Of the several divisions of the work, that of Parochial Topography occupies by far the greater share, and contains a separate description of every individual parish, arranged in alphabetical order. The information presented to the reader under this head is such as could not well be given in the general description of the County; comprehending particulars of the situation of each Parish with respect to the Hundred and Deanery in which it is placed, and of its distance and bearing relatively to the principal towns that are nearest to it; also an account of its manors, with the descent of them, and other landed REY. JAN. 1812. C property; property; military history; account of the church, and patronage of the beneficial charity-schools, hospitals, &c. Directing our attention to the account of Cambridgeshire, in the first instance, we must observe that the first section, intitled • Antient Inhabitants,' would have been more appropriately called Antient Geography; while the information belonging to the part of it which is called Government, because referring to the present era, would come in more appropriately in some subsequent portion of the account. The section of Historical Courts contains a concise military history of the county; in which the keeping possession of the Isle of Ely, for a considerable time, after the rest of England had submitted to William the Conqueror, forms a prominent feature. We must here commend the method adopted by the compilers of citing. their authorities for the facts that are related; a mode which cannot be too carefully followed, and of which the neglect by some county-historians has considerably diminished the value of their works. It would be farther desirable if the page of the book cited were specified in every instance. In the Antient and Modern Division of the County, we meet with the antient names of the several Hundreds and Manors taken out of Domesday Book, with the modern names answering to them as far as they could be ascertained. In the section of Ecclesiastical Division and Jurisdiction, it is related that the county of Cambridge was formerly part of the diocese of Lincoln: but that the Abbots of Ely always claimed an independent jurisdiction within the limits of their own isle; and also that in the year 1108, a bishopric was founded at Ely, and the whole of the county of Cambridge, with the exception of a few parishes, was added to the Isle of Ely, in order to constitute a new diocese. Under the head of Principal Gentry and their Seats, the remarkable circumstance is stated, that, to the best of the knowlege of the compilers, not one family out of a list of 235 recorded in the year 1433 is now resident in the county; and the present seats of gentlemen are stated to be only 34. The section of British and Roman Roads and Stations was communicated to the compilers by the Bishop of Cloyne, and is an interesting article on that subject. Under the title of Antient Church-Architecture, we are presented with the following information: -- No county in England produces a richer display of ancient church. architecture than Cambridgeshire; since Ely cathedral alone furnishes a pretty complete series of the styles which prevailed from the eleventh century to the sixteenth. The first examples we shall produce are of that species of architecture, generally known in this country by the name name of Saxon, which is the same that prevailed throughout Europe, after the decline of the Roman Empire; and which is in fact nothing 'more than Roman in a degenerated state, and enriched with a great variety of grotesque and irregular ornaments. Of this mode of building, which with some variation in the magnitude of the edifices, and in their decorations, prevailed in England from the seventh century to the twelfth, a very curious example, and unquestionably one of the oldest in the kingdom, occurs in the remains of the conventual church at Ely; the greatest part of which still exists, though filled up with the prebendal houses. This building is undoubtedly of as early a date as the reign of king Edgar, in the tenth century; and indeed there is reason to suppose, that at least some parts of it are remains of the original edifice, erected by St. Etheldreda the foundress of the monastery, in the latter part of the seventh century. This church was an oblong building consisting of a nave and choir, both of them with side aisles, from which they were separated by round, and octagonal pillars alternately placed, and circular arches. The east end of the building is supposed to have been originally semicircular; but a chapel appears to have been afterwards added there, which is now converted into a house for one of the prebendaries.' Besides the Conventual Church of Ely, several other churches in the county, which have specimens of Saxon architecture, are mentioned; and the objects worthy of notice in them are described. With respect, also, to the style of building which succeeded this mode, we are informed that There are some examples in this county of the pointed arch, enriched with the chevron and other Saxon mouldings, which style may be considered as the immediate forerunner of the Gothic; the most remarkable of these are to be seen in Soham church, and in the south door-way of St. Giles's in Cambridge, which has a sharply pointed arch, much enriched, under a very high and sharply pointed pedi ment and in St. Mary's church at Ely, the north and south doorways of which have pointed arches, enriched with chevron and other Saxon mouldings; those in the south door-way seem to have been taken from the ruins of the conventual church; the pillars of these door-ways are slender, with foliated capitals. The next examples of ancient church architecture, which we shall produce, are some of the earliest of that style generally known. throughout Europe by the name of Gothic. A great variety of cou jectures have been made by ingenious men, respecting the origin of this kind of architecture; the best opinion seems to be, that one of its most prominent features, the pointed arch, arose from the intersection of two circular ones, which so frequently occurs in churches, erected in the twelfth century, in different parts of Europe *; to wards the close of that century, the pointed arch appears to have been It is to be seen in the west front of two very ancient churches at Palermo, and Placentia, erected in the early part of the twelfth gentury.' much used in Italy, but it was soon abandoned on the revival of the Grecian architecture. In England, France, Germany, and Spain, the Gothic architecture continued much longer, and was no where more generally used, nor perhaps exhibited so great a variety of elegant ornaments or such just proportions as in this country, though in point of magnitude and splendid decoration, our cathedrals must be allowed to be inferior to several of the same kind on the continent *. Since Cambridgeshire affords such a series of the different styles of this light and elegant kind of architecture, so peculiarly appro priate to religious edifices, we propose in the annexed plates to exhibit specimens of them, taken chiefly from Ely cathedral and King's college chapel; and have classed them in centuries, conceiving that to be the most convenient, and best mode of arrangement; for though it may happen, that the style of one century should sometimes run int the next, yet there has been always one mode sufficiently prevalent in each, to be considered as appropriate to that century.' On the whole, this is an interesting article; and it is proper to add that, agreeably to what is proposed, the description of the most prominent features of ecclesiastical architecture used in the earlier periods, and in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, is particularly inserted under the head of the century to which they belonged, and specimens by way of explanation are given in plates annexed. The subject of Antient Sepulchral Monuments is also treated in the same manner, according to the centuries in which they were erected, and engraved specimens are subjoined. The section of Parochial Topography being extended to a considerable length, the compilers have stated the sources whence they derived their information; and after having mentioned the several printed works and MS. collections relating to the county, they thus proceed: In the following brief parochial account, we have amply availed ourselves of Layer's collections, in the hundreds of which they treat, as will be seen by our references, interspersing such additional information as we have procured from public records, and from two valuable MS. volumes, obligingly lent us by Marmaduke Dayrell, Esq. of Shudy-Camps: these volumes, duplicates of which are in Trinity college library, contain, besides a transcript of the hundred rolls in the Tower, copies of the Nomina Villarum, and the escheat rolls for Cambridgeshire: they are the more valuable, because the original of the Nomina Villarum, which was in the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer's office, has been lost more than fifty years; and the escheat rolls are not at present in such a state of arrangement as to be accessible. The contents of these rolls have supplied additional information in many instances where Mr. Layer's collections have appeared As those of Strasburg, Amiens, Rheims, Milan, Burgos, and Toledo.' deficient |