524 REVIEW.-Curtis's History of Leicestershire. "There are obviously but two modes in which a topographical work ought to be written, the one in which every record, both public and private, as far as possible, should be given at length, and every local circumstance and every history of men and things detailed. But such a work, whilst it would be worthy of the Aristocracy of a country to encourage, could only be undertaken under such auspices, and could only be completed under the patronage and fostering care of the nobility and gentry of the County at large yet even in this case, where could talents and assiduity be found competent to execute such a plan in any reasonable space of time? and if accomplished, it would, from its costliness, be a dead letter to the majority of readers. "The other mode would be that of giving the principal features of the subdivisions of the county, as regard its present state; and as brief and condensed a view of the ancient records, as would render those documents intelligible, and be generally necessary to satisfy the casual reader, and yet so much as might excite the curiosity of those more particularly interested, whilst the sources were at the same time pointed out from whence further information might be drawn if requisite. The latter plan has been adopted." In these observations the writer approves of a very lengthy plan, whilst he has followed a very condensed one. We dissent both from that he has approved, and that he has followed. We have modern County Historics (see the reviews in our last and present numbers) which prove that there is no occasion to print every record entire to fill out a work worthy the Aristocracy of a County; but that a brief and condensed view, provided it be sufficiently explanatory to render those documents intelligible," is all that is necessary with regard to them; although there are other matters of pertinent description and agreeable illustration, which will extend an author's work as far as he considers it prudent to do. The deficiency of that ready access to records which was enjoyed by Sir William Dugdale and his coadjutors, has been severely felt by many subsequent authors. It is now partially supplied by the publications of the Record Commission, but still only partially. Mr. Curtis, however, appears to have considered those publications all-sufficient; and has consequently almost entirely relied on them *We know not why Mr. Curtis in his title calls them "Parliamentary," except it [Dec. for the "ancient part" of his history. He has abstracted these publie records in the briefest possible manner: and has not attempted to connect or illustrate them with those genealogical deductions without which no history of the descent of property has hitherto been considered complete. We are such cordial admirers of system and arrangement, that we at first view were inclined to give Mr. Curtis great credit for the clearness and conciseness with which he appeared to have condensed his information. But, on examining more closely, we found reason to conclude that, al though" brevity is the soul of wit," it is not suited to be the presiding genius of county history. Before we make any further remarks, we will take as a specimen the parish of "ASHBY PARVA, Essebie, Lytel Asshely. Hund. of Guthlaxton, 24 miles N. from Lutterworth, and 93 from London; contains 350 acres, 176 inhabitants, 34 houses, its expenditure in poor-rates 891. 58. The soil is clay and gravel. The principal lauded proprietors are John Goodacre, esq. who is Lord of the Manor, and Alsop Lowdham, esq. The King is patron of the Rectory, which has a giebe of 30 acres.-P. N. T. 4l. 78. 4d. Vicar 21. 3s. 8d. In 1535 the Rectory was valued at 51. 7s 6d. and a pension of 6s. Ed. was paid to the Knights Hospitallers. The parish was inclosed in 1676: it extends to the parishes of Leire, Kimcote, and Ashby Magna, but its boundaries are not clearly defined. "In 1086 Robert de Buci held 2 carucates, 6 villans and 1 bordar had 1 plough; there were 8 acres of ineadow.' In 1245 the Knights Hospitallers had a grant of free warren.2 In 1976 Dalby Hospital had property here; in the fee of Ferrars were 21 virgates, and the Hospitallers had a view of frank pledge 3 In 1291 Canwell Priory had a peusion of 4s. from the church. Theobald Verdan held of a fee. William de Cotes held lands.5 Theobald Verdun held a fee.6 William Herle held lands.7 In 1350 Elizabeth de Bury, wife of Theobald Verdon, held a fee. In 1364 Robert Heile held lands; Sir Robert's property devolved to In 1316 In 1330 In 1336 In 1347 is because the Commission by which they 4 Inq. post mort. vol. i. 284. 6 Ibid. 71. 7 lb. 135. s Ib. 222. 9 lb. 266. 1831.] REVIEW.-Curtis's History of Leicestershire. his nephew Sir Ralph Hastings, and the manor was sold about 1507 by Lord Huntingdon's trustees."10 Now, what" disjecta membra" have we here! It will be perceived that the sole arrangement attempted with regard to these excerpta from the records is one in order of dates. The account from Domesday Book naturally precedes, from its priority to almost all other written testimony; but why give only half the information that invaluable record presents? Domesday Book informs us not only of the state of the country under the Norman conqueror; but of its former more happy and prosperous condition in the time of King Edward the Confessor. At that earlier period Little Ashby had been held free of taxation by one Godwin, who had kept half another plough-land in cultivation; and its value was six shillings, although reduced after the Conquest to two. These interesting portions of the Domesday information Mr. Curtis has omitted throughout his work. In the remainder of his territorial chronology, it will be perceived that, from want of arrangement, the notices of one estate must be mingled with those of another, and again with other matters which are purely miscellaneous. Let us see how far this is the case with Little Ashby; but first refer to the copious History of the County by Nichols, who had the use of the valuable collections of Burton and Cave, to see whether the present author has made full use of the information there to be found. No: here are some records, which throw far greater light on the ancient history of this parish than any of those published by the Record Commission. Here are in particular two inquisitions dated 1277 and 1296, which give a general view of the whole parish, and furnish a key by which alone those records that relate to its parts are to be arranged and explained. They inform us that Ashby Parva was divided between four different great fees, those of Ferrers, Peverell, Verdon, and the Bishop of Lincoln; and describe the quantities of land and the tenants belonging to each. The history of each portion is therefore distinct, and should be distinctly treated. To the first belong the fragments which Mr. Curtis gives 10 Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iv. p. 21. 525 of the years 1245 and 1276; to the second those of 1347 and 1364; to the third those of 1316, 1336, and 1350; and to the fourth that of 1330. The circumstance that "Canwell Priory had a pension of 4s. from the church," is quite impertinent to the history of the land. The clause has been divided from the return in Pope Nicholas's Taxation mentioned in the first paragraph: but it has not otherwise any connection with the date assigned to that record, since we find from Nichols that the same payment is mentioned in a matriculus of 1220. It must be added that there is one of the publications of the Record Commission, the Testa de Nevill, of which, though very essential to topography, Mr. Curtis has made no use. Regarding Little Ashby, it records two tenures circa 1240, of equal importance to those he has given. In their present state we can compare this author's scanty abstracts only to some disjointed bones placed in the order of their discovery upon the table of the geologist. The labour of the transcriber has responded to that of the excavator; but nothing further has hitherto been performed. The next process must be arrangement, before any correct idea can be obtained of the beings to which these dry and uncouth relics once belonged. To form a skeleton, genealogy must supply the ligatures; but, if any resemblance to the life be desired, biography must mould the muscles, and give animation to the features. Mr. Curtis may say that all this is far beyond the scope and the limits of his work. We reply, that we cannot excuse the neglect of the second process we have described. To have performed the first is nothing; for the records have been already printed, and already furnished with indexes of places and persons. His compilation forms only a Leicestershire index of places. We do not assert that brief topography may not be written without genealogy and biography. That has been continually done in abridgments and dictionaries like the present; but the compilers of such works have generally confined themselves to those statistical particulars which are contained in the former of Mr. Curtis's paragraphs. Very useful is such information; and very serviceable are topographical dictionaries. But when a 526 REVIEW.-Curtis's History of Leicestershire, history of manors and estates is attempted, genealogy is indispensable to illustrate their descent, and biography (we mean in particular those actions of the inhabitants which connect them with the place and the district), is highly desirable to lend an interest to the detail. An unconnected catalogue of isolated records, must necessarily have all the dullness of a muster-roll; and it is only by an interest attaching to families that the monotony of mere names, dates, and quantities is relieved. We advocate no discursive introduction of what may be found in the peerages and books of general history; but only maintain that a history of the descent of property, to be complete, will involve some account of the proprietors and their families; the rest is matter of embellishment. We feel confident that the changeringing of carucates, virgates, fees, and portions of fees, with a certain number of ancient names, which fills more than half this volume, is altogether (in its present shape) less useful as well as less interesting than an account of a few of the most illustrious families, and brief memoirs of the most eminent natives (like that Mr. Curtis has given of Wickliffe under Lutterworth), would have been considered. As it is, the most ancient families of the county, who have held great estates for centuries, are no further noticed than those names through which small portions of land have passed in the most rapid manner. the Nevills of Holt, a family which has existed for three centuries and a half, and is still remaining among the resident gentry, we are only told Of "In 1476 Thomas Palmer held the manor, and by marriage with Caroline Palmer the manor came to William Nevill." There is scarcely anything of Church architecture; scarcely anything of monumental sculpture; even the fine Rutland monuments at Bottesford are passed unnoticed. The author has judiciously given the value of the glebe lands, in order to show what gross injustice is done the clergy of the established Church, when they are described as rolling in wealth; but he has not paid the reverend incumbents the compliment of mentioning their names, and the dates of their institutions, a piece of information which would have been very useful, and have occupied very little space. [Dec. We have extended these remarks further than we should otherwise have done, because we are told that the volume is "the first of a series of the Counties of England and Wales on the same plan.” As the undertaking, therefore, is only commenced, our observations may not be useless. Had the case been otherwise, we should have more agreeably employed our space with approbation, and extracts from those parts of the work which show that Mr. Curtis, although an imperfect antiquary, is capable of collecting and imparting much valuable general information. The introduction consists of some well condensed remarks on the local divisions of the county; population, and contested elections; boundaries; rivers, canals, railways and roads; geology, botany, agriculture, manufactures, and last, though not least in Leicestershire, its fox-hunting. The account of Leicester town is written on a more liberal scale than the country parishes; and we are even indulged with some biographical notices of the ancient Earls; and with that brief description of the Churches which we should have been glad to have seen elsewhere. The description of the Duke of Rutland's new castle at Belvoir is the first that has appeared, and is very complete, having been revised by his Grace himself. We have the pleasure to extract an interesting description of Mountsorrell, a place on the high road between Leicester and Nottingham. "The town is built at the extremity of a ridge of rocky hills of moderate elevation, which extend from this place into Derbyshire. The rock immediately at the back of the town is about 100 feet high, and precipitous on every side, the highest point of which, called Castle Hill, almost overhangs the town. It is composed of a reddish granite, or sienite, the most perfect specimens of which are red quartz, white feldspar and black shorl, in nearly equal proportions, and is one of the most compact of all the granites, none of the red Cornwall being superior to it in hardness, and as such, is in considerable request, and is worked extensively. Many of the houses are built of complete and unhewn masses of it. The almost intractable nature of this stone long kept it out of general use. It is now nearly forty years since, having been previously squared by manual labour, it was first applied to the modern improved mode of street pavement, and for this purpose it has been found equal to the Scotch granite. No 1831.] REVIEW.-M. Mahè on thing can exceed its firmness and durability, when properly laid. The value of this material, independently of its manifold uses, lies chiefly in the labour of detaching and working it; and in the expense of carriage; the waste is now become of enhanced or nearly equal value. It is one of the best, perhaps the very best, material of which turnpike roads can be formed. The system named M'Adamizing, commenced and was practised on the roads in this neighbourhood long before that gentleman could claim any pretension to its invention. Its application for that purpose originated with the then surveyor of the turnpike roads in this vicinity, and its solidity was proved and its importance established previous to Mr. M'Adam being known. Of late years the uses of this almost indestructible stone have been much extended by the judgment, enterprise, and perseverance of Mr. Jackson, who having procured skilful workmen from Scotland, has rendered it available for architectural use and ornament. The entrance gateway of Mr. Pochin, of Barkby, is a fair sample of what taste, labour, and ingenuity can accomplish with so stubboru a material. Its consumption for all its various purposes will, undoubtedly, increase; and is will hence form a staple article of commerce. The river Soar runs by the rock at a little distance."-p. 128. Essai sur les Antiquités du departement du (Concluded from p. 433.) THE Celts, says M. Mahè, acknowledged one supreme God, but they also worshipped Genii, Aapoves, or secondary gods, whom they held to be incorporated with different objects of nature; which objects were thus presumed to possess the art of divination, &c. because actuated by these Aaiμoves. Hence, from incorporation of them with birds, came, for example, augury; the superstitious worship rendered to rivers, lakes, fountains, trees, &c. The two ordeals of fire and water originated in the same supposed agency of the respective incorporated genii. Perhaps also from the Celtic theology came the doctrine of the Cabalists, according to which the air and waters were peopled by Sylphs and Ondins [water deities], as the earth and fire were by Gnomes and Salamanders. Thus M. Mahè. That such incorporation of dæmons was the ancient superstition of all the heathen nations, and presumed to be of antediluvian origin and the foundation of all idolatry by Maimonides, is shown by Parkhurst.* The same learned lexicographer further shows, that the word Demon (a dubious passage excepted) does not occur in any profane Greek writer, in a bad sense, before the time of Christ. From this bad sense came the ugly forms of devils. The Septuagint version of the Hebrew word in Isaiah (xiii. 21), which signifies rough hairy creatures, being rendered by dapovia, agreeably, says Parkhurst, to the heathen notions, that their demons, such as Pan, the Fauns, Satyrs, &c. appeared in the shape of rough, shaggy animals. This bad sense of dæmon occasioned the substitution of Catholic Saints, with their names, images, niches, &c. for incorporations of the Lupercalia and these supposed genii, and the different other heathen festivals with the Catholic ritual. M. Mahè gives us the following account of one of these commutations. "In the middle of the last century (siecle) the vine dressers in the environs of Paris used to place in the press a statue of Bacchus seated on a tun, and obliged those who entered to bow the knee to the image. To destroy this superstition, the time of the vineyard festival was removed to the feast of Saints Bacque and Dennis, because the one signified Bacchus, and the other Dionysius."-p. 328. It is plain from Tacitus, Callimachus, Ovid, Lucan, and St. Augustine, that the Celts, Greeks, and Romans, used to wash the statues of their deities once a year in a river. The custom still obtains in certain parishes of France with regard to the images of saints (p. 328). From this and other instances M. Mahè thinks that many superstitions of the classical Ancients were derived from the Celts. There are, in many of our own villages, favourite old trees, under which the peasants assemble for gossiping. This is a Celticism. "Germain of Auxerre, before conversion, offended the Christians, because in suspending the heads of animals killed in the chase, upon a tree which stood in the middle of the village, he appeared to render to it the same honour as the partisans of the Gaulish religion."-p. 333. M. Mahè rejects Auguilan euf as applicable to the Druids, when they in * V. Δαιμονιον, p. 139-141. + We give the extracts in translation. 528 REVIEW.-M. Mahè on Antiquities of Britanny. [Dec. vited the people to attend the ceremony of cutting the misletoe ("Ad viscum, viscum Druide clamare solebant"), because the word is a French compound. He also rejects Pelletier's, the Breton word Eghin an eit [the corn shoots], because it is cried on the last day of the year. We hold our author's objections not to be incontrovertible. An inscription SUL MINERVE, found at Bath, is mentioned by Mr. Lysons; but the etymon is unknown, though the Sulfes (whence some have derived Sylphs) were tutelar Gaulish gods. Sulva also occur in Fabretti. Sul has been called Celtic for our Sun, and the same as the Latin Sol; but says M. Mahè,* heaul is the true Celtic word; and Vossius proves that the Romans changed, in the adoption of foreign words, initial aspirates into S, whence eaul became seaul, and afterwards Sol. Now Aqua Solis is, if we recollect rightly, the Itinerary denomination of Bath; and if Sol and Sul were synonyms, Sul-Minerva may imply only a panthean Deity, of which instances are common. The junction of hands upon making a bargain, the Breton Toca, derived from the Hebrew Toa, which is of the same sense, is plainly shown to have been an Orientalism, transmitted to us from the Celts, originally Asiatics. This custom is alluded to in Job xvii. 3, and Proverbs xxii. 26, and by Xenophon and Diodorus (p. 348). Dumplings are of Celtic origin, for the Greek word Toλros, which signifies bouillie, is synonymous with the Breton pouls; and Jerom, turning into ridicule the heresiarch Pelagius (a latinism of his real name Morgan, which signifies, in Breton, born on the sea, or in a maritime country), calls him Stolidissimus et Scotorum pultibus prægravatus." The dumplings of the Bretons are made of buck-wheat, eaten with curds and whey (see p. 348). M. Mahè assumes that the beds of the Bas-Bretons, their loose trowsers (bracce), and caps or bonnets of the females, assimilating that of the goddess Nehalennia, are of Celtic intro P. 345. + Or Frumenty, qy? but we think from Higden, that Pults signifies dumpling; and M. Mahè calls Breton pouls, a "bouillie bien massive," which does not apply to frumenty. duction; the braccæ, because all the Barbarians upon Greek monuments, and particularly the Trojans, Phrygians, and inhabitants of the Tauris, who were Celts, wore "des chausses plissées" (p. 360). He also traces goblins, like Milton's Lubberfiend, and Shakspeare's Puck, to the Celts, through the Greek and Roman authors, and the Northern nations, because he thinks that manners and customs which obtained in all these nations, had a common Celtic origin. The Loup-garou (a Gaulish not French postfix) Cotgrave defines by a "Mankind Wolfe; such a one as once being flesht on men and children, will rather starve than feed on any thing else; also, one that, possessed with an extreame and strange melancholy, beleeves he is turned Wolfe, and as a Wolfe behaves himselfe; also, a Hobgoblin, Hob-thrush, Robin-good-fellow; also a night-walker or flie-light; one that's never seen but by owle-light.” This superstition and power of taking the forms of various animals, or of metamorphosing human beings, M. Mahè believes to be Celtic, because Circe was a Scythian Celt, born in Colchis; Moris in Virgil had a similar power; the Neuri, a Celto-Scythian nation, also, according to Herodotus; the priestesses of the isle of Sein likewise, according to Pomponius Mela; as well as our well-known Merlin, of whom our author says, "If we may believe Forcatulus (de Gall. imp.), the enchanter Merlin must have inherited this marvellous power from the above priestesses; for this author pretends that he was born in the isle of Sein, and rendered great services to King Arthur, founder of the knights of the Round Table, sometimes under the form of a dwarf, sometimes under the form of a varlet, sometimes under that of a stag; and the English Anals report, that he gave to King Uterius the features of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, for the execution of a criminal enterprise. (Delrio. Disq. Magi. L. ii. p. 187).” Thus M. Mahè (p. 361). We recollect that Taliessin and other Welch bards do mention decoctions of herbs, which were thought to produce the power of vaticination; and also pretended transformations of the person, palpably by masks and disguises, and such pretences and decep This is not to be treated as legend, for Athenæus says it was a Celtic custom. |