238 NOTICES or NEW PUBLICATIONS. ological reputation worthy of the ancient name of Verulam. We hope that Mr. Lowe will prosecute with fresh energy and success the labours Avhich have added so important a fact to the memorials of Roman occu- pation in Great Britain. Descriptive Notices of some of the Ancient Parochial and Collegiate Churches of Scotland. With illustrations on wood by Jewitt. 8vo., Edinburgh, A. Lendrum and Co. London and Oxford, John Henry Parker. We received this work with much pleasure, accompanied by an offer of the use of any of the woodcuts, which are really beautiful, and the typogra- phy excellent. At first sight we hailed its appearance with satisfaction as a fitting companion to the Architectural Topography of England, publishing under the auspices of our Committee. It is with great regret that we find ourselves compelled to say that our expectations are not realized, the work does not come up to what we had anticipated from it. A good short and popular account of the churches of Scotland is a work much wanted. Notwithstanding the barbarous manner in which they have been treated by the zealous but ignorant fanatics of the sixteenth century, and the still greater injury caused by subsequent neglect, enough yet remains to be worth preserving, and to be highly valuable to those whose education is sufficiently advanced to enable them to appreciate these relics of the former greatness and piety of their ancestors. The great thing necessary for this object is a work which can be understood by the people, and is calculated to make them feel an interest in the preservation of what stiU remains. We trust Mr. Billing's work will do much to effect this object, but assuredly the present writer will do very little. His descriptions are verbose and scarcely intelligible without the aid of engravings, which though excellent as far as they go, are too scanty in number to be of much assistance. The work is encumbered by hard words to excess, and presents all the specula- tions and conceits of the Ecclesiological School. One half the churches are described as S , and the orientation is duly described in all, occupy- ing space that might well have been better employed. It appears to us that a theory of orientation might with equal jorobability be based upon the age of the moon at the time the foundations Avere laid, as upon the time of the sun's rising on the day of the saint after whom it was named, which in many cases could not be known until it was finished. Whoever has looked down on the city of Caen from the hills surrounding it, must have observed that the two great abbey churches of St. Stephen and the Holy Trinity stand nearly at right angles to each other, and that St. Peter's and other parish churches follow the line of the streets in which they stand. The latter observation applies equally to other cities, in Eng- land as much as abroad, any person who has been at the pains of observing with the compass the orientation of a score or two of churches in England, whether in towns or in the country, must be satisfied that no general theory
