12 s. VIIL MARCH s, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. metropolis, if the directors of the provincial Public Libraries would pay more attention in consequence to providing as abundant a supply of local history and topography as their means will permit of, and facilitating the labours of the small fry of genealogists, of whom there is an increasing army in every city and borough of the kingdom. It is not allowed to everybody to ransack the archives of the Herald's College, the Record Office, the British Museum Library, &c., but frequently much information may be obtained from local books, and if deemed of sufficient importance then the assistance of one of the officers of the above-mentioned offices can be usefully called in. CROSS CBOSSLET. ROUTE THROUGH WORCESTERSHIRE (12 S. viii. 152). The route taken by the Gun- powder Plot conspirators from Dunchurch to Stephen Littleton's house at Holbeach has been worked out by Mr. John Humphreys, F.S.A. in a paper entitled ' The Wyntours of Huddington and the Gunpowder Plot,' read to the members of the Birmingham Archaeological Society in December 1904 and published in vol. xxx. of the Transactions of that Society. From this paper, which is illustrated by a map, it would appear that the conspirators, after leaving Hewell Grange, proceeded by way of Burcot, Lickey End, Catshill, Clent, and Hagley to Stourbridge, at or near to which place they crossed the Stour by a ford, and finally reached Holbeach House at 10 p.m., thus having taken 16 hours to travel the 25 miles from Huddington. BENJAMIN WALKER. Langstone. Erdington. 0tt The Year Books. Lectures delivered in the Uni- versity of London at the Request of the Faculty of Laws. By William Craddock Bolland. (Cambridge University Press, 6s. net.) WE possess two main records of cases heard in the early English Courts : the Plea Bolls and the Year Books. The first are official, made by the officials of the Court, their purpose being a final statement of the facts and the resulting judgment in each particular case ; the second constitute one of the most fascinating of all historical problems, and a mine, as yet but im- perfectly worked, of information on mediaeval life. Not only so, but they are a treasure peculiar to England. They consist ofjreports of cases taken from the very life ; inserting much which the Plea Rolls omit, and omitting much which these include. The object before the reporter would seem to have been the illustration of precepts and prin- ciples, the compilation of material for a pleader's guidance in formulating pleas, an account, for purposes of instruction, of the progress of an argument. Who were these reporters and by whom em- ployed ? Much has been written on the subject and the weight of present opinion is in favour of considering the production oi the Year Books as a commercial enterprise. They have formerly been supposed to be fair copies of notes taken privately in court, or, again, to have had a semi-official origin. The general public knows little of them. Thus ' The Encyclopaedia Britannica ' contains no word about them ; and the University of London is the first of pur Universities to give them official recognition. From time to time, however, there arise enthusiasts who go so far as to prize thenx above most other literature Mr. Bolland tells us of Serjeant Maynard of seventeenth century fame who carried a Year Book with him in his coach to amuse him when travelling, preferring it to any comedy. And we hear of an American woman student who would spend her afternoons in a boat with the Selden Society's edition of the Year Books fascinated by the picture they give of the life of the time. Their bulk is considerable for they range from 11 Edward I until 27 Henry VIII, when the intro- duction of printing caused them to be superseded by reports made on a different plan. The lan- guage used is Norman French or, as Mr. Bolland would prefer to have it called, Anglo-Norman, . and the transcriber has to wrestle with immense difficulties in the way of abbreviations. We would draw the attention of our readers to* this book with more emphasis than usual, for it is= one that should have a special interest for any friend of ' N. & Q.' Mr. Bolland's account of the Year Books is excellently done. In his third lecture he gives us a taste of the quality of the reports, and no true lover of antiquity can fail to be charmed even by this slight glimpse of what is in truth an immense field of information.. But more than this, the Year Books have attracted ' the notice of scholars outside England : students , of mediaeval history are alive to their importance and to the work yet requiring to be done to make the treasures contained in them available. . Twenty years ago Maitland expressed the fear that it might not be Englishmen who edited the Year Books, though the Year Books are the unique possession of England. To save the situation Year Book scholarship must become an endowed study. Its importance from the stand- points alike of law, history, sociology and philo- logy cannot well be over-rated, yet, hi England, the sense of this has still almost to be created. The first step is undoubtedly to make the existence and character of the Year Books more widely known and we congratulate Mr. Bolland both upon having so inspiriting a task and on having carried out so ably the present instalment of it. Later Essays 1917-1920. By Austin Dobson. (Humphrey Milford, 6s. 6d. net.) MR. AUSTIN DOBSON'S studies of Eighteenth Century life have long since w*on for him an appreciative public. The half-dozen figures whom he limns for us in this volume regain, beneath his practised pen, a good measure of their native vigour or grace. Nor are his pains ill-rbestowed
