Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/294

240 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 S.X.MAB. 25,1022. is plausible, though, in regard to peoples, ,we think expressions of " youth " and " age " tend to be used too frequently and taken too literally.. Mr. Lucas, working over again the field of Cunliffe's monograph, 'deals capably with such imitators of Seneca as Daniel, Kyd and Marston, but with great satisfaction we find that his read- ing makes him more and more sceptical about the bulk of Shakespeare's supposed borrowings. Even the parallel between ' Macbeth ' and the ' Hercules Furens ' noted by Lessing (' Quis Tanais . . . abluere dextram poterit ?) a clearer example than most -hardly strikes one as more than a coincidence, the thought itself being so natural. A study of reputed origins is under- taken somewhat at the student's peril : post hoc is all too easily turned into propter hoc. Mr. Lucas, however, does not appear to be in danger. Isaac Greene : A Lancashire Latvyer of the Eighteenth Century. By Ronald Stewart- Brown. (Liverpool. Privately printed. 6s. 6d.) THIS monograph falls into three parts, of which the first gives an account of Isaac Greene. Dying in 1749, Greene had made his mark in the life of Liverpool and amassed a considerable property in manors in the county. Among his descendants in the female line is the Marquess of Salisbury. Yet until 1911 no one had succeeded even in identifying his father ; and not until 1920 could his family be traced. At the latter date Mr. John Brownbill found among Lancaster Chancery Records particulars of a suit which have enabled our author to trace the line of Isaac Greene's progenitors back to the late fifteenth century a piece of work on which he is much to be con- gratulated. The Greenes were a yeoman family who lived at Rainhill and Whiston, in the parish of Prescot. Their first appearance in the records early in the sixteenth century is as parties to a violent dispute over a piece of common pasture known as the Copt Holt, whereon a magnate of the neighbourhood had insisted on building some houses, which the Greenes apparently took upon themselves to burn down. In the late seventeenth century from farming they turned to mercantile life. Edward Greene, father of Isaac, failed in business and went abroad. Isaac, born in 1678, was apprenticed to an attorney, and his industry, ability and good fortune brought him to a position of importance before the age of forty. Already he was the owner of several manors, and of land in near half a score places besides. Trading with the West Indies may well have been the source of his wealth and it is worth noting that the slave trade did not rise into activity until after his day. The purchases of Greene's estates make a very interesting study, for which the researches both of our author and of Mr. Brownbill have discovered abundant material. He made, rather late in life, a very profitable marriage with the heiress of the Aspinwalls, who brought him the great manor of Hale. By her he had three daughters, of whom the youngest married Bamber Gascoyne and was grandmother to that Frances Mary Gascoyne who became the first wife of the second Marquess of Salisbury. The second part of this monograph is com- posed of the diary of Ireland, Isaac Greene's second daughter, who married Thomas Black- burne of Orford. Its pages relate in very simple notes, many of which consist of little but names the course of two visits to London, and a visit with her father to Scarborough, during which the old man died suddenly of apoplexy. Mr. Stewart-Brown has supplied short biographical notes to the names, some of which carry considerable interest, for the Liver- pool attorney at the close of his life was moving in a numerous and polished circle. The photograph of Isaac Greene from the portrait attributed to Hogarth at Hale Hall shows the face of a ton vivant, but of a humorous, shrewd character, by no means, if the broad forehead is to be trusted, devoid of benevolence. The portraits of Ireland and Mary Greene are also given. Mr. Stewart-Brown has not only arranged with clearness and skill his interesting material,, but also made his book as a whole decidedly readable. Early British Trackways. By Alfred Watkins. (Hereford : The Watkins Meter Co. 4s. 6d. net.) THIS little book puts forward with great en- thusiasm a theory that prehistoric trackways were all straight lines marked out upon a sighting system by experts. The sighting-lines, or " leys," were taken from and to natural conspicuous features of the landscape, and the line was kept true by marking-points, which might be mounds, water, trees, blocks of stone or cuttings. The author offers as proofs a series of observations in which at least four of such marking-points are found situated in a straight line between two im- portant points, the terminals of the trackway, and he claims to show interrupted remains of old " leys " in several places. He illustrates his work with a considerable number of excellent photo- graphs ; and proceeds to interpret place-names in accordance with his discovery. It will be ob- vious at once that a more extended study is required before this theory can be taken seriously, but we think Mr. Watkins has shown that his hypothesis is good enough to be more widely experimented with. So far it has been applied to the country about Hereford. 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