Minor Notices 169 has been eminently successful ; the book is interesting, every page of it, and everyone must say so. And the illustrations are an added element of interest. A'. Dawson Johnstox. Dr. Osmund Airy's new edition of Burnet's History of My Onm Time is carried on by the issue of the second volume (Clarendon Press, PP- 533) to 'he end of the reign of Charles II. The announcement made elsewhere that Dr. Airy has entered into official engagements which will make it impossible for him to continue his work, must be a matter of great regret to all historical students who are interested in the Revo- lution of 1688. To vi'hat was said in this journal (III. 166) on the publication of the first volume there is little to add on the present occa- sion. The plan is the same, and the editor has carried it out with the same minute fidelity, good judgment and extensive learning as before. An excellent index to the two volumes is provided. It is stated in the preface that the editor intended to place in an appendix the full text of Burnet's " Characters " from the Harleian MSS., " which appear in an inaccurate and incomplete form in Ranke's sixth volume" ; but that he relinquished the design, the Delegates of the Clarendon Press having decided to incorporate these "Characters" with other material in a supplementary volume. The History of the Castle, Town, and Port of Dover by the Rev. S. P. H. Statham, rector of the Castle church (Longmans, pp. 462), has some of the faults and some of the excellencies of the average local his- tory. He refers to Gardiner's Students' History, as if it were an author- ity upon Roman Britain, and he gives a good deal of desultory informa- tion which were fitter for a text-book of English history ; but the topographer, it may be said, cannot go far astray in the use of author- ities, and even the introduction of some general history may be excused. Dover has two chapters of history which are peculiarly her own : the history of the Tower of Julius Caesar so-called, the most ancient building in England, and the history of the Church of St. Mary-in-the-Castle, the oldest church in Britain. But the castle records being lost, the ma- terials for the history of tower and church are very inadequate, and the author, while siding with Canon Puckle in assigning an early date to the church, can only say that it was probably erected in the first century. About the history of the town there is less conjecture, the town accounts existing from the year 1365 and the minutes of the Common Assemblies from 1506. The author dates the town walls from the reign of Edward II. , though Burrows traced them back to Norman times and Puckle to earlier times still. These points will interest the specialist. But who does not know the charm of topography as mere reading? In this, for example, one can learn that the tariff for passage across the straits was 6d. for a footman and 2s. for a horseman, and how every householder was compelled in the time of the third Edward to have a tub full of water outside his door every night in case of fire, and of the
