notices of the Priors of Tynemouth; historical and descriptive notices of the conventual church, and the parochial church; notices of the fortified works known as the castle of Tynemouth; an appendix of grants, charters, &c., addenda, and a general index. The work is illustrated, as before, by illuminated borders and initial letters, executed by Mr. Henry Shaw, and is a splendid specimen of printing. We cannot but again express our regret that the great cost of this publication will have the effect of limiting the usefulness of the vast mass of curious matter which the author has collected, but would hope that another edition may appear divested of the costly ornaments of the present.
NOTE.
We have received a letter from Mr. Freeman complaining of the notice of his description of Irthlingborough church[1], published in this volume. It is not our usual practice to attend to the remonstrances of authors whose publications come under review; and we depart from the established rule on the present occasion only because Mr. Freeman alleges that our Reviewer misrepresented him in certain matters of fact. Omitting those parts of his letter which are not relative to the matters of fact in dispute, we give his vindication entire. We must observe however, that Mr. Freeman assumes that the two notices of the "Northamptonshire Churches" which have appeared in our Journal, were written by the same person. This is merely a presumption on the part of Mr. Freeman, and like such conjectures in general is not correct.
Mr. Freeman's letter does not contradict any material statements of the Reviewer, it rather confirms them. The Reviewer said that Mr. Freeman's account of the church was "very confused and unsatisfactory," and by way of exemplifying this, proceeded to give in a couple of pages a clear and distinct description, more intelligible to the general reader than Mr. Freeman had given in twenty. It is not true that he held up the "Publications of the Northampton Society to ridicule;" on the contrary he praised them warmly, but regretted that a very difficult church, requiring much experience to describe it properly, had been committed to an inexperienced writer. Those points which still puzzle Mr. Freeman, and on which he begs for more information, are clear enough to a practised eye. The arch-buttress, built into the wall of an attached building, is not a very uncommon feature, and there are many other examples of recesses for altars in the transepts, although they have often been misunderstood, and described as doorways or windrows, as in the "Notes of the Neighbourhood of Cambridge, by a Member of the Camden Society." These are the ordinary mistakes of persons who begin to teach before they have learned: they may deserve praise for their activity and zeal, but a little more discretion would entitle their publications
- ↑ See this volume, p. 268.
