162 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



comments on the alleged illiberal reception which attended his visits 

 lo the cathedrals of Exeter, Hereford, and Wells. Indeed, he ex- 

 presses deep regret for having visited these cities for the purpose of 

 writing histories of their respective churches. He says that " with 

 apparently tardy reluctance leave was ultimately granted at these 

 places for the author and his draftsmen to have ingress to the 

 cathedrals to make notes, sketches, &c. : but they were otherwise 

 treated as impertinent intruders and suspicious personages. Among 

 other consequences arising from such treatment, the author was 

 obliged to commission a friend to visit Exeter, with two other 

 artists in 1825, and thus incur additional and even heavy expense. 

 Owing to a want of the requisite facilities for properly exploring the 

 two cathedrals of Exeter and Hereford, the outlay, caused by this 

 prohibition, exceeded the receipts by at least five hundred pounds ! " 

 This is one of the items, and certainly not a pleasing one in the 

 annals of '^ the Cathedral Antiquities,'* which, the author observes, 

 Mr. D'Israeli may, without much impropriety, introduce into a new 

 edition of his "Calamities of Authors." 



On this unpleasant assertion, we have to observe that the worthy 

 and intelligent author might not, possibly, have been at the moment 

 in the most perfect state of quiescent feeling. Authors are some- 

 times very irritable, and usually more from sensitiveness than 

 absolute provocation — they have a thousand strange conceits when 

 their brains are teeming with visionary speculations, and attended 

 often with an absence of mind, most marvellous to men of a cooler 

 temperament. It would be charity towards the accused, to imagine 

 that Mr. Britton was under a delusion at the moment, only that we 

 cannot exactly reconcile this set-off against the three distinct and 

 positive charges. There must be an error somewhere — we should 

 be very unwilling to believe that in either of the dioceses named, 

 there was the least intentional lack of courtesy from a church digni- 

 tary to any man of lettered fame — more especially to a writer of such 

 well-known and acknowledged celebrity as the author of " the 

 Cathedral Antiquities of England; " and ''the Architectural Dic- 

 tionary ;" — but his statement is too circumstantial and precise for 

 doubt — we must attribute it, therefore, to circumstances which may 

 possibly yet admit of some favourable modification or re-con- 

 struction. 



We regret to learn that the volume before us, "The History and 

 Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Worcester, is the last of the 

 author's series, and that the publication of the records of the seven 

 remaining Cathedrals of Carlisle, Chester, Chichester, Durham, 

 Ely, Lincoln, and Rochester, which would have completed this im- 

 portant work, is wholly abandoned. It is due to the talented author 

 to state, however, that before he came to the determination of 

 closing his work with the present volume, he addressed letters to 

 each of the prelates, and to all the deans and chapters of England, 

 explaining the state and nature of the publication, and the necessity 

 of relinquishing it unless he felt secured against pecuniary loss. 



