Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/618

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610 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October has formed its main undertaking during the war. The first 135 pages contain the third edition of the Catalogue of the Inscribed and Sculptured Stones of the Koman Era in the possession of the society, with a great number of new woodcuts of a superior type and some process prints, and with additional references. In one or two cases the cuts should be altered to correspond with the readings now adopted ; but for the most part the catalogue is sound and workmanlike. The collection, derived to a great extent from the principal camps on the Wall of Hadrian, from the earlier excavations at Corbridge, and from such outlying posts as High Rochester, is representative of all varieties of Romano-British monuments, and includes some objects of great value, such as the soldier (88), the Hercules (86), the Victory (93), the tombstone of the (? bearded) lady (101), and the inscription in honour of Hadrian (98). The minor articles and collections of documents are well assorted. There are bio- graphies of Professor Haverfield, Thomas Slack of Newcastle, and Uthred of Boldon, with pedigrees and accounts of the ancestry of J. H. Hinde and of a glass-making Tyneside family of Italian origin, called Dagnia, connected with the Pauls of Gloucester. The Clervaux cartulary is of little general value ; but it contains a certain number of interesting place- names and field-names. Mr. W. H. Knowles's account of the house of the Black Friars at Newcastle seems at first short and slight ; it is, however, carefully illustrated, and on examination will be found to be a very competent and even exemplary sketch of a fair-sized friary. But once again the fasciculus by Mr. C. H. Hunter-Blair, in the form of a final ' Note upon mediaeval seals with special reference to those in Durham Treasury ', will attract most attention. It is a really competent survey of the subject, with eight more plates of seals and sealed documents and other relevant objects ; and when it becomes the introduction to a separate edition of the Greenwell-Hunter-BIair catalogue, for which it appears to be written, it will greatly enhance the value of that work, for which additional notes (pp. 300-13) and corrections (pp. viii-xi) are also provided. It would be difficult to better Mr. Hunter-Blair's concise descriptions of the development, both of the seals themselves as works of art, and of the various accessories to their use, such as material, shape, method of attachment, &c. ; and his illustrations supplement the previous plates, to which he gives copious references, so as to elucidate by good examples every point in his survey of the subject. Here and there indeed is still room for conjectural emendation ; e.g. god helpe the pope (p. 296) must surely be god helpe the pore, and ' John de Grey Rotherfield ' must be John Grey, baron of Rotherfield ; but Mr. Hunter-Blair will probably find more corrigenda for himself than any one will find for him. It is sad that Dr. Greenwell should not have lived to see the completion of the grand edifice erected on his foundations. H. E. D. Blakiston.