townships of Settrington and Scagglethorpe, respectively Anglian and Danish. He has discovered also a law that in districts, like Wessex, where bury (=byrig, dat. of burg) means a town, then borough (beorh, beorg) denotes a hill-e. g., Salisbury besides Wanborough; whereas, on the other hand, in districts like Yorkshire, where bury (beorg) means a hill, then borough (=burg) usually denotes a town-e. g., Horbury besides Conisborough. The prosaic character of English nomenclature, with its 114 Newtons and 73 Suttons, contrasts unfavourably, as Canon Taylor points out, with the beautiful and often poetical place-names of the Celt. When all is so good, "wanting is what?" An index, undoubtedly, to the extensive amount of matter which lies outside the glossary proper. We have noticed a few slips too among the obiter dicta. The Icelandic verb búa, which yields bar, Dan, by, seen in Whit-by, Grims-by, &c., does not mean to build (pp. 342, 377), but to dwell. "Steadfast" is certainly not from A.-S. studu, a post, as if "firm as a post" (p. 382), but merely fast in its place, from A.-S. stede, a place. Dissentis (p. 115) has a superfluous s in the first syllable. These

are but small faults to find in a book which we can heartily recommend.

The Non-Christian Cross. By John Denham Parsons, (Simpkin, Marshall & Co.)

THE question of the origin of Christian symbolism is hedged in with difficulty and surrounded with pitfalls. Much ignorance prevails concerning the sources of religious belief and practice. Since the development of folk-lore, it has been impossible to repress investigations such as timid believers have regarded with mistrust or dislike; and the whole domain of the growth of religion has been widened by the researches of a Tylor and a Frazer. While we might, perhaps, have preferred some title like Pre-Christian Cress,' less absolutely negative than that chosen, we are not disposed to dispute many of Mr. Parsons's conclusions, Mr. Parsons writes in a spirit of reverence, and states clearly and forcibly what has been conceded by the best authorities, that the cross is not primarily or wholly Christian in origin. Volumes have been written of late concerning the significance of the cross and the crescent in phallic worship. That the cross, long a symbol of life and of the sun-god, was not accepted as sacred by the Christian until the time of Constantine seems as indisputable as that the Labarum of that emperor was raised by one himself at that time a worshipper of Apollo. Every student recalls the pages in Gibbon concerning the Labarum, beginning, more eloquently than accurately: "An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only on slaves and strangers became an object of horror in the eyes of a Roman citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy were closely united with the idea of the cross." This Mr. Parsons would dispute, holding it doubtful whether the cross as now understood was often used for the purposes of punishment by the Romans. To the signification given to the word oravpóc, literally a pale or stake, he objects. The word, he says, at the beginning of our era no more meant a cross than the English word stick means a crutch. Of the kind of gravpóc which was admittedly that to which Jesus was affixed, he says, that it had "in every case a cross-bar attached is untrue; that it had in most cases is unlikely; that it had in the case of Jesus is unproven." On the establishment of the Christian cross Mr. Parsons has much to say, and he writes much on the so-called monogram of Christ in its various shapes, and on the Coronation orb. His work displays much erudition, and his conclusions are carefully thought out and well expressed. The subject, however, scarcely commends itself for long treatment in a review

Old Testament and Monumental Coincidences. By J. Corbet Anderson. (Bell & Sons.) MR. ANDERSON has gathered into a pretty little volume a number of somewhat heterogeneous essays bearing more or less on the subject of Christianity from an apologetic point of view. He tells us that they took their origin out of musings in a country churchyard, which is hardly what we would have expected, seeing that his chief chapter is an academic one on the agree ment between the Old Testament Scriptures and the monuments of antiquity. The author has evidently had a difficulty in labelling his collection of essays, as it is lettered on the back" Christianity and its Introduction into Britain," which is one of his subsidiary subjects, while the title-page holds out the book to be 'Old Testament and Monumental Coincidences.' It bears evidence of some research, but has no leading idea or internal cohesion, so that its raison d'être is not very apparent.

The Book-Plate Annual and Armorial Year-Book, 1896. EACH year brings with it a new book-plate annual, half (Black.)

serious half humorous, from Mr. John Leighton, The latest opens with a book-plate for the Holy Bible, which might, perhaps, had books been invented, have been that of Adam and Eve. An account is given of the dispersal of the treasures collected by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, London. Book-plates are then dealt with. An elaborate plate is designed for the centenary of Burne, as also a Carlyle book-plate. There are tributes to the editor's namesake Lord Leighton, and to Lord de Tabley, and there is a book-plate for an actor.

DAVID BRYCE & Co., the publishers of the Thumb Dictionary,' have issued a Holy Bible, surely the most diminutive in existence, and deserving honourable mention among the miniature volumes with which N. & Q.' sometimes occupies itself. Its text, though we are ourselves unable to read it, will be legible to some. It has many illustrations and is in an ornamental binding with gilt edges. Its size is 13 in. by 1 in., and its weight 180 grains. Less than a fourth of the size is a midget New Testament, which is absolutely less than a thumb-nail. This is in a case with a magnifying glass, by aid of which it may be read,

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hláka, a thaw; hlana, to thaw; hlær, hlyr, warm, mild. AYNHOE ("Lukewarm ").-A.-S. wlac, tepid. Cf. Icel Dut. leukwarm, Ger. lauwarm, O.H. Ger. láo.

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THE ATHENÆUM

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This Day's ATHENÆUM contains Articles on
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MAX MÜLLER on MYTHOLOGY and FOLK-LORE.
SEELEY'S INTRODUCTION to POLITICAL SCIENCE.
CAPT. YOUNGHUSBAND'S TRAVELS.

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OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE-REPRINTS.
OUR LIBRARY TABLE-LIST of NEW BOOKS.

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