Wilts Books, Pamphiets, Articles, Sc. 75 
The Early Fiction of Richard Jefferies. Edited by Grace Toplis. 
With a rare portrait [aetat 22]. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. ; 
Wells: A. Young. 1896. Pp. xv., 210. This volume contains a short but 
interesting paper on Zvaits of the Olden Time, followed by four short 
melodramatic tales—A Strange Story; Henrique Beaumont ; Who will 
Win, or, American Adventure ; and Masked—all of which appeared in 
the North Wilts Herald during 1866. Of these there is little to be said. 
In the opening sentences of A Strange Story we seem for a moment to 
trace 'some foreshadowing of the author’s maturer style, but that is all. 
Regarded as stories, they are little better than burlesques, a boy’s crude 
work, showing in every page his utter ignorance of the scenes—social, naval, 
and military—which he was endeavouring to depict. But, as illustrating 
the earliest stage in the development of a great writer’s powers, they will be 
welcomed by all students of Jefferies. The editor’s preface is well put, and 
says all that need be said. In it she quotes two specimens of Jefferies’ verse 
—“To a Fashionable Bonnet,” and “The Battle of 1866,’—which have | 
been unearthed among the files of the Worth Wilts Herald. G.E.D. 
Leaves from the Journal of the Poor Wiltshire Vicar, being pp. 8—69 
of Hlementary German Exercises, by W. E. Mullins. 5th Edition. 
London: D. Nutt. 1894. This is an excellent but slightly abridged 
translation, arranged for school use, of a pathetic tale by the well-known 
German novelist, Heinrich Zschokke, who is said to have founded it upon a 
fugitive sketch that appeared in England about the middle of last century, 
from which Goldsmith drew some of his materials for the Vicar of Wake- 
field. This sketch is probably to be identified with the Week's Journal of 
a Wiltshire Curate, which was reprinted in The Crypt for 1829. A com- 
plete translation of Zschokke’s tale appeared in Zhe Gift, an American 
publication, in 1844, and was afterwards reprinted, somewhat revised, as 
the Journal of a Poor Vicar, in Vol. II. of Chambers’s Miscellany of 
Instructive and Entertaining Tracts. The scene is laid at Cricklade. 
during the winter of 1764-5, and the poor curate-in-charge, with his hard- 
earned stipend of £20 per annum, goes through many trials and sufferings 
during the few weeks that his diary covers. However, all ends well, and 
. goodness of heart and simple piety are suitably rewarded at the last. Many 
names of persons at Trowbridge, Cricklade, and Wootton Bassett are 
mentioned in the course of the narrative, but we are unable to say whether 
any of them can be identified. G.E.D. 
Wiltshire Notes and Queries, No. 14, June, 1896. A good number, 
The Annals of Purton are continued, with genealogical information as to 
Goddards and Reads—accompanied by a reduced form of the beautiful 
drawing of Restrop, which is given in Some Old Wiltshire Homes. 
Then follow seven pages of extracts from the Gentleman’s Magazine, 
showing the same amazing carelessness in the editor of 1758-9 as previous 
extracts have shown—Nutsley, Chaulkley, Borrington, Musselden, Abbots 
Loaders, Barton, Dub-Down, Secombe, Wimbleton Carey, Mudgeworth, 
Priors Hadden, are mysterious rectories and vicarages which certainly are 
