pp. 44-46, 81-82. The first of these articles deals with Dorset, the second with Wilts. The 2nd Wilts was with the 7th Division. They held their trenches from Oct. 18th-21st, when in the German general attack the "Regiment was completely wrapped up by the masses of their opponents and nearly the whole battalion killed, wounded, or captured. As a fighting unit the 2nd Wilts was knocked out, but it had gained undying glory." The 1st Battalion had 18 days' continuous fighting at La Bassee and lost nearly 500 men. The members of the principal leading families of Wilts serving in the forces are mentioned, with excellent photographs of the late Lieut. Percy Wyndham, of Clouds, and of his cousin, Lieut. Geo. Heremon Wyndham, of the Devon Regt.

The Wiltshire portion of the article was reprinted in the Wiltshire Times, July 24th, 1915.

Alfred Williams. Pitman's Journal had an article, reprinted in The Wiltshire Gazette, June 24th, 1915. giving a number of interesting particulars of the life of the Hammerman Poet. Born at S. Marston in 1877 he began work as a half-timer on a farm, and on leaving school became a regular farm boy until at 14 he entered Swindon G.W.R. works as a rivet lad. After a while he became a steam hammer driver, finally becoming a hammerman engaged in forging and stamping, and he remained so until recently. He taught himself shorthand largely dur ing meal times at the works. At 21 he first acquired a taste for literature through reading an anthology. He then joined the correspondence classes in English Literature conducted from Ruskin College, Oxford, of which he remained a member for four years. He then studied Latin, and afterwards Greek and French, all three of which he mastered, at the same time leaving home every morning at 5 o'clock on a four mile walk to Swindon and his work. He published his first volume of poems in 1909. His published works of poetry up to the present are as follows: Songs in Wiltshire, 1909; Poems in Wiltshire, 1911; Nature and other Poems, 1912; Cor Cordium, 1913. His prose works are: A Wiltshire Village, 1912; and Villages of the White Horse, 1913. The Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard is publishing serially (June, 1915) a new work, Round about the Upper Thames.”

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The Wansdyke (visited by the Som. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc., at Englishcombe, June 25th, 1914). Notes by Albany F. Major in Proc. Som. Arch. and Nat. Hist. Soc., LX. Pt. I., pp. 62—67, 1914. The author explained that he had spent three or four days prior to the meeting in following the line of the Dyke from the point a little west of Bathford, where it left the Roman Road, to Maesknoll, some 3 miles S. of Bristol, the furthest point west to which it could be traced with certainty. Collinson says (Hist. of Somerset) that it went to Portishead, but Hoare could not confirm this, though some traces of the Dyke were found at Yanley Street, 2 or 3 miles north-west of Maesknoll. From Bathford to Bathampton Camp its course is fairly clear, but from this point on in the near neighbourhood of Bath it has been largely obliterated. A section of a ditch in a quarry S. W. of Bathampton Camp may be

that of the Dyke, but if so the course shown on Ordnance Maps is not correct. At the head of Horsecombe Vale, it reappears near the Cross Keys inn, on the Frome Road, and runs in a straight line due W., -mile to Odd Down touching the Fosseway close to Burnt House Inn. Boundary walls and hedges run along the top of the vallum all the way. Near Odd Down a quarry known as Wansdyke Quarry, on the N. side of the Dyke, shows two sections of the ditch, which is here 7ft. 6in. deep from the top of the silting, and probably 8ft. 6in. from the original surface, with a width of 24ft.; the vallum being about 4ft. high above the edge of the ditch. The ditch here is excavated out of solid rock. Two good photos of the sections in this quarry are given. Form Odd Down to Englishcombe and on to Maesknoll the course of the Dyke can be traced with approximate certainty, though it is no longer visible for considerable stretches. Cuttings made through the Dyke at Englishcombe and Claverton Down made by the Bath Branch of the Somerset Arch. Soc. (Proc. Bath Branch Som. Arch. Soc., vol. 1904-1908, pp. 54), produced no conclusive evidence of date.

Devizes, St. Mary's. Bells rehung. The proposal to recast the six bells into a peal of eight on the ground of their unmusical tone was strongly opposed by the Wilts Archæological Society at the enquiry held by the Chancellor before granting the faculty. The matter, however, ended in the faculty for the recasting being granted. On the breaking out of the war, however, in 1914, it was decided to postpone the question of recasting the peal until after the war, whilst the work of rehanging the existing bells in a new iron frame was proceeded with, and on its completion a re-opening service was held on Aug. 28th, 1915, at which the Archdeacon of Wilts (Ven. E. J. Bodington) gave an address on the history of the bells, all of which were probably founded in Wilts, at Salisbury and Aldbourne. This address is printed in full in Wiltshire Gazette, Sept. 2nd, 1915. The cost of the rehanging has been £280, of which £171 had been secured. The recasting of the peal-which it is much to be hoped may now never be proceeded with-would cost an additional £115.

"The Thames from Lechlade to Cricklade," by Leonard J. Brown, an article in the December, 1915, number of the G. W. Railway Magazine, is reprinted in the Wiltshire Gazette for Dec. 30th, 1915, under the heading By Canoe from Lechlade to Cricklade." The course of the river and the many obstacles which it presents to the progress of any kind of boat are described step by step.

Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. A Commemora

tion. A short sketch of Burnet's life and character on the 200th anniversary of his death, by A. H. T. C(larke, Rector of Devizes), is printed in the Wiltshire Gazette, Dec. 16th, 1915. The writer regards him as one of the Church's "greatest Bishops and most saintly of Christians."

Westbury. Notices of Deaths, Marriages, &c., of Westbury people in the early 19th Century, printed in Wiltshire Times, May 29th, 1915. St. Aldhelm's Life and Times, a long address by Bp. G. F. Browne (late of Bristol) to the Swindon Branch of the Workers Educational Association, during their visit to Malmesbury Abbey, May 29th, is printed in full in Wiltshire Gazette, June 3rd, 1915. Не mentions that it is proposed in the Revised Book of Common Prayer to restore St. Aldhelm's name to the calendar on May 25th. Salisbury, South Wilts, and Blackmore Museum. Annual Report. Salisbury Journal, July 31st, 1915.

Recollections of an Admiral's Wife, 1903–16. By Lady Poore. With a Portrait. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 15, Waterloo Place. 1916.

Linen, 8in. × 5țin. pp. xii. + 344. Printed by Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., London and Tonbridge. A portrait of Lady Poore as frontispiece. Sir Edward Poore sold Rushall in 1830; his grandson, Sir Richard Poore, sold Knighton, on Salisbury Plain, where he had lived as a boy, to the War Office, in 1898, still retaining Durrington Manor. He bought the house at Winsley Corner (formerly known as Winsley Chase), in 1904, and it is with the settling down here after the roving life of a sailor's wife that Lady Poore begins her very pleasant recollections. The book indeed is divided into three sections, the life in the country at Winsley, from 1904 to 1908, where she identified herself with the interests of the parish and the neighbourhood; secondly, the period at Sydney, during which Sir Richard Poore was Commander-inChief on the Australian Station, 1908-1911; and thirdly, that at Chatham, from 1911 to the end of 1914, when he held the command at the Nore. Lady Poore tells many a good story, but she never writes an unkind word of anyone, and if she is quick to see the humorous side, she is generally quick to see the best side, alike of places and things and men. Of Winsley and its country interests she writes most sympathetically, Australia was for her a kind of earthly Paradise, even of Chatham she came to see that it had a good side. Wherever she was she set to work to take her share and more than her share in the life and interests of the people and the place; at Winsley the establishment and maintenance of the parish nurse, in Australia the furtherance in every way of good feeling between the mother country and the people of the Commonwealth, at Chatham the more poignant interests of the war and all that it meant to the place whose ships have suffered more severely than those of any other British port. The loss of her only son, Lieut. Roger Poore, though she says little about it, only made her throw herself with more complete sympathy than ever into the work of comforting and caring for the wives and children of the sailors of the fleet, which had really always been, even in peace time, the chief interest of her life.

Stanton Fitzwarren Churchyard Cross. A drawing and a descriptive note of this cross, a copy (except for the figures in the head) of that at St. Mary's, Cricklade, erected at Stanton Fitzwarren as a memorial to the men of the parish who have fallen in the war, appear in the Bristol Diocesan Magazine for April, 1916. "The Soldier and the Cross, an address by Canon Caldwell Masters, M.A. (Rector). on Sunday, January 23rd, 1916, at the Dedication of the Churchyard Cross, St. Leonard, Stanton Fitzwarren, Price Sixpence, Printed and Published by Morris Bros., Advertiser Office, Swindon, 1916," is pub lished in pamphlet form.

Notes on the English Ancestry of the Whittier and Rolfe Families, of New England, 1912. By Charles Collyer Whittier, of Boston, Mass. Pamphlet, 93in. × 6§in. 14 pp. Reprinted from the "New England Historical and Genealogical Register," July, 1912.

This is a valuable genealogical collection of wills and entries in parish registers concerning the two families with which it deals. It contains abstracts of the wills of John Whiteheare, of Landford, 1571 ; Henry Whytear, of Landford, 1583; John Whitear, of Pensworth, in Downton, 1593; John Whittyer, of Whiteparish, 1601; Will Whyteer, of Whiteparish, 1603; Agnes Whiteyeare of Landford, 1607; Margaret Whitier, of Whiteparish, 1630; Whittier entries in the registers of Whiteparish, 1559-1655, and in those of Andover, Hants, 1586—1650. There are abstracts of Rolfe wills, John, of Downton, 1519; Henry, of Hamptworth, in Downton, 1546; Henry, of Hamptworth, 1558; Richard, of Hamptworth, 1567; William, of Plaitford, 1573; Henry, of Hamptworth, 1579; Richard, of Hamptworth, 1598; Alice, of Hamptworth, 1604; John, of Whiteparish, 1624; Thomas, of Whiteparish, 1629; John, of Hamptworth, 1662; and Rolfe entries in the Whiteparish, Downton, and Andover registers, with Rolfe entries in the Salisbury marriage licenses, 1615-1634.

The Centenary of the "Wiltshire Gazette."

On

January 6th, 1916, the Wiltshire Gazette published a Centenary Number. George Simpson (born at Truro, 1792, died 1871, the son of George, born 1760, the son of Joseph and Ann Simpson, of Burslem, Staffs,) established, on January 4th, 1816, at "The Halle of John Halle," in Salisbury, Simpson's Salisbury Gazette and Wilts, Hants, Dorset, and Somerset Advertiser. In July, 1819, the Gazette was removed to Devizes and appeared on July 1st in that year as The Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, and from that date it has been continuously published from different offices in the Market Place. The Centenary Number gives details of all these buildings. On the founder's death (1871) his son, George (1818-1900), succeeded him as proprietor and editor until 1886, when he retired, handing on the management to his son, George, the present proprietor, who was born at Devizes, 1854. An account of the various sizes of the Gazette from its foundation to the present time,

with a reproduction of the opening page of the first issue in 1816, is given, together with portraits of the three George Simpsons, and views of the interior of the Halle of John Halle; No 23, Market Place, Devizes; and of "Devizes Market Place 100 years ago, from a contemporary water colour drawing sketched in 1816." Mr. R. S. Gundry has an article, A Hundred Years," comparing the condition of things then and now, and there are a series of excerpts from old files of the Gazette. A very interesting issue.

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A Collection of Verses. By James Dolman, for over 50 years a Thatcher on Roundway Farm, Devizes. Devizes: Printed by George Simpson, 14, Market Place.

Pamphlet, 7 in. × 4in., pp., including title, 50. The Introduction by Edward Coward, dated Roundway, 1911, tells us that these poems have been printed from MS. found amongst his father's papers. The writer lived in Devizes and was entirely self-educated. The poems, dating from 1799 to 1830, have been in no way touched up, and are— considering their authorship and date-quite remarkable. They deal with the events of the Farm, Harvest Home, Sheep Shearing, &c., and often give a detailed account of the weather of the seasons with which they deal:

"The Earldom of Pembroke." One of a series of articles on "The Patriotism of Historic British Families" in The Lady's Pictorial, autumn number, 1915, with portraits of Will. Herbert, 1st Lord Pembroke, and the present Earl and Countess. Reprinted Salisbury Journal, Oct. 23rd, 1915.

"The Character of Bishop Burnet." Sermon preached by Canon Douglas Macleane, at Salisbury Cathedral, at the Commemmoration Service, Nov. 2nd, 1915. Text, Eccles., viii., 12. Salisbury Journal, Nov. 6th, 1915.

BOOKS AND ARTICLES BY WILTSHIRE AUTHORS.

Amy J. Baker. "The Snake Garden: a Tale of South Africa. London: John Long, Limited. 1915."

Noticed, Wiltshire Gazette, July 15th, 1915.

Charles Bathurst, M.P. (for S. Wilts.) "To avoid National Starvation. With a Preface by Lord Charles Beresford, M.P. London. Hugh Rees, Ltd., 5, Regent Street, S.W. 1912." Pamphlet, 8vo., pp. 28.