Notice of Phelps's History and Antiquities of Somersetshire. 155 



Under the former head Mr. Rickman enumerates twenty churches, ia 

 the northern, eastern, and southern parts of the kingdom, two only. North 

 Burcorabe and Brytford, having been observed as far west as Wiltshire. 

 It is remarkable that out of these twenty ante-conquistal edifices, the 

 names of seven commence with B. 



The characteristic of these ancient buildings are the coigns of what Mr. 

 Rickman calls " long and short masonry," that is to say, composed of 

 longer vertical and shorter horizontal stones, placed alternately. 



Not the least valuable portion of the volume is the appendix, containing 

 a list of the principal buildings in each county, with a concise and critical 

 notice of what is remarkable in each. 



Mr. Rickman seems jealous of this part of his book, lest it should de- 

 generate into a gazetteer. We wish, on the contrary, that it had been 

 amplified. Certainly the best means of ensuring the general adoption of a 

 system of classification, is to place within the reach of every one the means 

 of applying it to as many examples as possible. 



It is to be wished also that Mr. Rickman had enlarged upon those moie 

 minute details upon which deductions concerning the precise age of build- 

 ings must rest. Many of the churches around us present mouldings very 

 diflFerent from those by which the style may be elsewhere characterised, 

 and the transitions between the early English and the decorated, manifested 

 in Bristol cathedral, Keynsham church, &c. seem especially to deserve 

 more notice than they have received. 



Mr. Rickman's work has supplied one great desideratum — but there is 

 still needed a work upon the geometry of architecture ; an analytical esti- 

 mate of the degree of geometrical skill possessed by the monastic architects, 

 whether they ever employed too great a quantity of material in their 

 walls and buttresses, and by what means they determined the direction of 

 the curve of support, so as securely to reuiove the extraneous parts of a 

 buttress. 



[in the press,] 



The History and Antiquities of Somersetshire, by the Rev. fV. Phelps, 

 f^icar of Meare. 4to. 4 vols. 



If our readers will turn to the advertisements upon the wrapper of this 

 number, they will find there the announcement of a new county History of 

 Somerset, by Mr. Phelps. 



Whatever may have been the merits of previous histories, there can be 

 no question but that such a work is very much to be desired, not for So- 

 merset only, but for almost every county in Great Britain. The History 

 of Leicestersliire, by Mr. Nichols, and that of Durham, by the late Mr. 

 Surtees, arc by far the first of such works; the former for extraordinary 

 copiousness of detail and number of engravings, and the latter for its 

 accuracy and the high and bicid style of its composition. The History 



