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iSotius of iSefo publications. Chart of Ancient Armour, from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries: with descriptive text. By^ J. Hewitt. 1847. The Tower : its History, Armories and Antiquities ; compiled from Offi- cial Documents, by J. Hewitt. Published by authority of the Master- General and Board of Ordnance. Guide de la Tour de Londres, conte- nant un resume de son Histoire. By the same. The investigation of the peculiarities of ancient military costume has, in recent times, found much favour with students of medieval antiquities. The satisfactory evidence afforded by these details, in regard to the age or the country to which works of design should be attributed, and the facility with which a practised eye seizes their distinctive features, has caused this subject to be deservedly esteemed one of considerable interest and utility in our archaeological researches. Difficulties, which the antiquary of the last century had to encounter in the prosecution of such enquiries, have now, in great part, been remedied. A national collection, exhibiting a chronologi- cal series of authentic examples illustrative of arts, manners, customs, and manufactures, is still greatly to be desired in this country ; but much has been done, by aid of faithful representations of characteristic types, to sup- ply the means of forming a critical appreciation of middle-age antiquities, and to reduce vague confusion into the order of scientific arrangement. In the investigation of costume, for example, the labours of Stothard, of Henry Shaw, of Waller, and other talented antiquary-artists, have brought within our reach a mass of valuable evidence, such as no other country, perhaps, can produce. To sum up the results of such researches, and render them available to every class of enquirers, is an undertaking of general utility, well deserving to be thankfully appreciated by the archaeological student. The Chart of Armour, compiled by INIr. Hewitt, forms a graphic outline of the subject of military costume during the period of its greatest interest to the English antiquary, sufficing to present to his view the most striking distinctive peculiarities which mark the changes in armour from the age of mail to that of buff. The author has made a judicious selection of examples, chiefly from the rich series of English monumental effigies, and, in the brief text which accompanies these illustrations, a useful resume will be found of a subject which not many years since was attainable only through the me- dium of voluminous and costly publications. The labours of Mr. Hewitt in this branch of antiquities had been pre- viously known in his useful manual of the History of the Tower and its Armories, a little work well deserving of notice, not merely by the curious