

Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 343 



affluent circumstances, and that only about one eighth of the house- 

 holds had an income insufficient, with wise and careful management, to 

 provide food and clothing adequate in quantity and quality to keep all 

 the members in full health and vigour. . . First and foremost this 

 prosperity results from the distribution of land in the parish, from the 

 good gardens attached to each cottage, the abundance of allotment land, 

 the number of small holdings . . ." 



This book is a monument of scientific industry and accuracy. For 

 every conclusion stated, the premises on which it is based are placed 

 before the reader, who is thus enabled to judge of the evidence 

 himself. There is no vague theorising, nor any attempt to make 

 awkward facts fit in with preconceived opinions. It is and will always 

 remain a standard authority for present day conditions in the life of a 

 somewhat favourably-situated Wiltshire village. 



Survey of the lands of William, First Earl of Pem- 

 broke. Transcribed from vellum rolls in the possession of the Earl 

 of Pembroke and Montgomery. With an Introduction by the Transcriber, 

 Charles R. Straton, F.R.C.S., F.E.S., Fellow of the Royal Society of 

 Medicine, and a Preface by the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. 

 Oxford: Privately printed for presentation to the members of the 

 Roxburgh Club. MCMIX. 



Two vols., 11 J X 9in. Printed at the University Press. Half-bound. 



Vol. I., pp. xcix. (of which the Introduction fills pp. xvii — xeix) + 314, 



Vol. II. Title, contents, and list of illustrations, 6 pp., unnumbered 



+ pp. 317—624. 



It will be remembered that in vol. xxxii. p. 288 of this Magazine, Dr. 

 Straton printed a paper on " An English Manor in the time of Elizabeth." 

 This paper was founded on the great MS. Survey which he had then 

 begun to edit, and his work has now been completed by the issue by 

 the Earl of Pembroke of these handsome volumes, in which large 

 margins, excellent paper, beautiful type and illustrations, are combined 

 to produce, not only a fine book in itself, but one of the most important 

 works for the topography and manorial history of the County of Wilts 

 ever published. 



The origin of the work is thus told by Lord Pembroke in the Preface : 

 " Some four or five years ago, while turning out a quantity of lumber, 

 including old pieces of armour, mantelpieces, &c, from the gallery of the 

 Riding School at Wilton, the workmen came upon a plain wooden box, 

 which, upon being opened, was found to contain three ancient vellum 

 rolls. These rolls, upon examination, proved to be a full and — so far 

 as they go — a complete survey of the land of William, first Earl of 

 Pembroke of the present creation." 



These rolls are here printed in full with the curious pen drawings accom- 

 panying them excellently reproduced. Dr. Straton's analysis is a masterly 

 review of the bearing of the facts contained in these rolls on all manner 

 of subjects, from manorial customs of abstruse origin to the comparative 



