Page:An Old English Home and Its Dependencies.djvu/3

An Old English Home and its Dependencies. By S. Baring-Gould. Illustrated by F. Bligh Bond. (Methuen and Co.) Mr. Baring-Gould's antiquarian gossip about old English homes and their dependencies is very pleasant, and Mr. Bligh Bond's illustrations are charming. But perhaps because the subject is one of such infinite fascination that expectation pitches itself too high we are a little disappointed in the book as a whole. It produces the impression of having been too hurriedly written. Some chapters terribly want cutting, for instance, we could very well spare a good many of the stories in the too well-known vein of the jocular parson at a clerical meeting in a rural district, into which the author allows the dangerous topic of the pulpit to lead him astray. And, on the other hand, we could have done with a great many more particulars about ancient manor-houses, manor- mills, church-inns, and squatters' cots. The chapter about inns is exceedingly interesting. We fancy comparatively few people know that the church-inn used to be a very necessary and much-respected part of the parish constitution, a place where the congregation waited under cover and ate their dinners between matins and vespers. Meat, it seems, was brought from home, but ale was supplied on the premises at the cost of the parson, who appears in a general way to have done his part of host only too well. The description of the livery-cupboard is cal- culated to give a new impetus to the zeal of the collector of old oak. And here is a delightful bit of Devonshire talk about screen-doors, involving a very interesting point in the theory of ecclesiastical architecture. Mr. Baring-Gould visited last year the parish church of Coombe Martyn, and made the discovery that it possesses in addition to a very fine rood-screen that has neither been demolished nor restored, " something else of interest a very intelligent, quaint old parish clerk " : " As I was admir- ing the screen, the old man, who was dusting in the church, came up to me and said : ' Please, your honour, have y* ever heard tell why the screen-doors niver shut ? ' I expressed my doubt that this was so. ' Now do y' go and look at ivery old church screen you seez,' said the clerk. ' If it ho'n't been medelled wi' by them blessed restorers, you'll find for sure sartain that the oak doors won't shut. Zur, see here. Here be the doors. Try 'em ; they can't be made to shut.' I answered that the wood had swelled, and the joinery was imperfect. ' No, your honour,' said the old man. ' If you look close, you'll see it was pue eqi o^ SnmmSeq sn B^seao^ui puts suuBqo pun 'ean^wo jBan^im A^qgnoj si emojaq QIWI eqj; 'AJO^B inj^qSipp ^psej si -uouiaioo eqq. jo ;mo e^n MB ^eq^ ji esiopuo o^ si ^i pura 'seuo^s eABq oq. eiB eM. ji seouepiouioo ^snm e^ t sSuiq^ esaq^ 30 unqdraoo o^ SuioS si* oqM. g; -suisnou pesoddns jeq raoaj paeiq jeq^ouu jo A*isnoiAqo 91 IS ,,'A'3S9 j Aiysdx si ^SSapj ^Bq^ SuisseuS ut Suo 9c l ^ ou III^ Bjap^ea jo peouoiaadxe %BVdi eq^ 'esanoo JQ ('0