membranes in the Public Record Office. No part of the original is omitted, and some outlying parts which are now within the city boundaries have been added. The Society owes a debt of gratitude to the careful and conscientious work contributed by Miss Graham. It may be noted that in normal entries there are given the tenant, a description of the holding, the owner, the rent, and the estimated real value. With the help of the lucid arrangement and the index it is hoped that Oxford topographers will be able to make fuller use of this important document than heretofore. II. The destruction of stained glass and of ecclesiastical monuments in Oxford during the Civil War has been lamented by many writers, from Antony Wood onward, and is all the more grievous because it was not done in fair fight during the siege, so much as through the vandalism of soldiers of the garrison. One Royalist officer, however, has done much to fill the place of these lost records by sedulously copying such as were still to be seen in the winter of 1643-4, no doubt amid the jeers of his idler comrades. The notes are preserved in the British Museum, and all such as supplement or correct Wood's later church notes have been accurately reproduced by Miss Graham, every omission being noted by square brackets with due references. In other cases square brackets contain a blazon of such arms as are given in Symonds's notes in trick: while the footnotes add some later information of about 1659. It will be seen that a considerable addition is made to our knowledge of monuments in Oxford which perished in the disturbed times of the seventeenth century1. No part, it is believed, has been previously printed. III. The Consecration services of Lincoln, Brasenose, and Queen's College Chapels, in 1631, 1666, and 1717 respectively, supply a type of English liturgiology not readily met with elsewhere in print. On each occasion Consecration, and not 1 It may be noted that on October 6, 1905, a brass of Henry Huchenson of 1573, which has long been regarded as lost, was discovered in the Chapel of St. John's College behind some woodwork, by Mr. Vyvyan Hope. merely Dedication, was effected: and in the case of Brasenose the Cloister was at the same time consecrated as a 'cemetery of the chapel of St. Hugh and St. Chad.' It is noticeable that only at Brasenose is the Bishop of the Diocese allowed to act as Consecrator in his own right: and even this may have been an informality, for at Lincoln the Bishop acknowledges that the whole College is outside his jurisdiction, and that (as at Queen's) the Visitor of the College is the proper Consecrator. IV. The gossipy account of Oxford institutions and society in 1683-6, given by Thomas Baskerville of Sunningwell, is of an unusual kind, as conveying the impressions of a country squire about the neighbouring University, of which he was not himself a member. He gives lists of his personal friends in the various colleges, and notes of contemporary life and customs of considerable interest. He states, for instance, that at Queen's (p. 221) the Boar's Head was in his time a wooden one with white froth and some burning pitch placed in front of its mouth. The Rev. H. Baskerville, of Oriel College, has kindly transcribed and edited this part. V. To the natural desire of a lawyer to give as much detail as possible in accounting for the substantial sum of £226 8s. 9d. received by him, is due an elaborate Bill of Costs on the occasion of the Coronation of George IV, at which the Mayor of Oxford played a not inconspicuous part, and duly received a silver-gilt cup for his Butler Service. There was clearly grave doubt whether the cup would be actually presented or even ordered to be made, and in this and many other points the Bill is an interesting supplement to the available reports of the ceremony itself. Mr. F. Williams, of 92 High Street, Oxford, has kindly copied out and annotated the document, the mistakes and misspellings of which have been intentionally preserved. VI. The final article in the volume is perhaps the most readable of all, especially for such as care about the old coaching days. It is an unstudied, somewhat illiterate, but undeniably racy and honest account of the Oxford stage coaches and coachmen, with stories of the road, as set down in old age by one of the last surviving guards. Some of the stories, such as that on p. 285, are full of humour. Acknowledgements are due to Miss A. F. Parker for some judicious and absolutely necessary alterations, which enable the reader to enjoy the freshness and humour of the old gentleman's reminiscences without being pulled up at every step by infelicities of grammar or spelling. October, 1905. F. M. CORRIGENDUM On p. 244 the item £6 8s. is an error in the original record for 6s. 8d. Attention is called to this by Mr. Ellis in a note at that page, which was by accident not reproduced when the rest was set up in type. CONTENTS BILL OF COSTS OF CHARLES ELLIS, LONDON AGENT TO THE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SILVER-GILT CUP OF GEORGE IV. CERTIFICATE OF ADMISSION TO THE FREEDOM OF THE |
