New Curiosities of Literature & Book of the Months

the writings of Saints-huge folios, from which a few grains of useful matter are to be extracted at the expense of days and weeks of labour.

Brand's Popular Antiquities is a work of a very different order, in spite of the careless and even ignorant way in which it has been edited by Sir Henry Ellis. As a storehouse of facts relative to the ancient habits and beliefs of the people it is invaluable, and the best antiquarian may glean something from it; but yetfie upon but yet! it doth alloy the good precedentsuch a compilation is more a work of reference than one to be read continouusly, for there is not the slightest attempt in it either at order or connexion; the various articles are flung together indiscriminately as in a common-place book, so that their utility is very problematical, except to those whose habitual studies enable them to find their way amidst the chaos. Independently of this, our road does not lie for long together, more than one half of the CURIOSITIES being devoted to topics quite alien from the Popular Antiquities.

There is yet another work that requires to be mentioned, as having gone over a part of the ground which I propose to travel--Foster's Perennial Calendar. But the points of contact between us are neither numerous nor important. The Flora and the Fauna, which are the most valuable portions of his work, are with me matters of very minor consideration, and can hardly be said to be more than incidentally mentioned. On the other hand he has not

given much attention to the very topics, which I have looked upon as the most essential. Neither therefore stands in the way of the other, even supposing the good-natured reader were disposed to allow of our being likely to clash in other respects.

Having thus despatched my rivals, something after the fashion of the redoubted Thomas Thumb, who "made his giants first, and then he killed them," I wish to say a few words in explanation of the numerous extracts occurring in the notes. No doubt, I apprehend, can exist as to the propriety of minute and correct references to the authorities on which any historical work has been based, and history must mingle more or less with all antiquarian discussions. The reader has a full right to know upon whose authority he is expected to believe the facts advanced, and without such information the unsupported statement of the modern writer must stand for nothing. But those, who will go with me thus far, may yet be disposed to question the propriety of lengthened extracts such as occur in the following pages. To objections of this kind I can only reply that the quotations have been given with no other view than to save the curious the trouble of hunting out dusty folios that are not likely to be found any where but in the largest libraries. Even where the works are of a more familiar nature, it still seemed to me better that the passages referred to should be brought together and presented to the eye at once, as offering the readiest means of comparing facts with statements.

This may perhaps seem a somewhat lengthy discussion, as our Yankee friends would call it, upon subjects of no great importance in themselves, and yet I am tempted to prolong it by briefly adverting to a point, on which I am particularly anxious not to be misunderstood. If the course of these enquiries has of necessity led to my showing at how early a period superstitious abuses began to gather about the purer code of Christianity, still I would not have it supposed for a moment that in so doing I have wished to adjudge the grand questions that divide the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches; they are matters of belief and doctrine, not of history, and, as their merits can not be tested by human reason, I feel and must acknowledge my own inability to deal with them. Such facts as patient research, and tolerably extensive reading have enabled me to elicit, I have advanced honestly and fearlessly, without enquiring whither they might lead; it is for others to draw conclusions. GEORGE SOANE.

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