36 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



In tlie six luindred large octavo pages which 

 make up the volume before us, we have the Middle 

 and Renaissance periods brought before us like a 

 panorama. Their social habits and requirements, 

 their art and science, love and war, homes and 

 prisons, spoits and pastimes, are described with 

 inimitable skill, whilst the accuracy of the state- 



former will thank him for so ably introducin:? them 

 to the habits and modes of life of their mediaeval 

 ancestors. The book is divided into sixteen chap- 

 ters, of which the most interesting to us are those 





Fig: 34. " Goose Tree," from Minister's "Cosmographi; 

 Universelle." 



ments are substantiated by the illustrations, which 

 have been derived chieily from the art-efforts of the 

 periods in question. The pictures very effectively 

 tell the talc, and it would not be difficult to infer 

 from them an accurate idea of the life of six cen- 

 turies ago, even without the aid of antiquarian 



Fig. 35. Tlie Pond Fisherman, from Munster's " Cosmographie," A.n. 1549. 



research. The great merit of M. Lacroix's work 

 is that it does not treat of its interesting subjects 

 in a dry-as-du5.t manner. It is written for the in- 

 telligent public, not for antiquaries merely ; and the 



Fig. 36. The River Fisherman, from a 16th century engraving. 



on the "Private Life in th^ Castles, Towns, and 

 Rural Districts," " Food and Caokcry," " Hunting,'* 

 " Games and Pastimes," " Guilds and Trade Cor- 

 porations," ''Punishments," and "Con- 

 dition of Persons and Lands." In fig. 

 33, we have' an illustration of the medie- 

 val mode of cultivating fruit, from which 

 the reader will gather that we have not 

 altered the method very greatly. A 

 little change in the dress and position 

 of the figures employed in pruning the 

 trees, and the picture would stand for 

 a scene in a modern nursery-garden. 

 The illustration is taken from a miniature 

 in the library of the arsenal of Paris. 

 As is well known. Western Europe was 

 exceedingly poor in fruits before the 

 Roman conquests. And although we find 

 from certain statutes of Charlemagne 

 that many of the imported fruit-trees 

 were reared in gardens, no extensive or 

 particular attention seems to have beea 

 paid to them until the fifteenth and six- 

 teenth centuries. Of course, the fable of 

 the " Goose-tree," which !^Ir. Southwell 

 has already described in the last volume of Sciexce- 

 Gossip, makes its appearance in M. Lacroix's pages, 

 as we do not see how it could be kept out. The illus- 

 tration, however, is of a simple character (6g, 3-i), 



