68 Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 



the house itself, in the parish of Kington St. Michael. Ten pages of the 

 Records available for the History of the parish of Bratton, and four of 

 Quaker Marriage Records — with the completion of Mr. Morres' Notes on 

 the Breeding of the Death's Head Moth, occupy the bulk of the number. 

 Of the shorter notes those on Page of Warminster — Edmund Stafford, 

 Bishop of Exeter — "A massive block of roughly -hewn sandstone with a 

 deep socket cut in the centre," which formerly stood on Battlesbury Hill, 

 above Warminster— and the derivation of Wroughton, are the most im- 

 portant. Mr. C. I. Elton has an interesting note on the derivation of the 

 term " Smoak acre," which occurs in an eighteenth century terrier of the 

 common lands of Clyffe Pypard. The word does not appear to be known 

 elsewhere, but Mr. Elton says " I should feel pretty sure that it was an 

 acre designed for the payment of the Church Scot or Peter's-pence, which 

 came to be called chimney money, fumagium, smoke farthings, &c. There 

 were acres in some places for paying expenses of Church ales and other 

 dues." 



DittO, NO. 21, March, 1898. This number, with an illustration 



of the arms of Bayliffe impaling Norborne, contains continuations of 

 "Estcourt of Swinley," by M. E. Light— Records of Bratton Parish — a 

 calendar of feet of fines for Wiltshire — and Quaker Marriage Records — 

 with a few shorter Notes and Queries, and a long review of the " History 

 of Pembroke College," by the Rev. Douglas Macleane, noticing especially 

 such members of the college as were in any way connected with Wiltshire. 

 It is a good solid number. 



The Collection of Pictures at Longford Castle. The 



Art Journal, April to December, 1897, gave in six instalments an account 

 by Claude Phillips of the principal pictures at Longford. The writer regards 

 this collection as one of the five really " great " collections now existing in 

 England in private hands, the other four being those o£ Bridgewater House, 

 Dorchester House, Panshanger, and Castle Howard — that of Hertford 

 House having lately become the property of the Nation. Even after the 

 loss of the three great pictures now in the National Gallery, " The gallery 

 of Longford maintains its position as one of the finest and most represen- 

 tative in England." The various schools are dealt with separately, the early 

 Netherlandish and German with illustrations of the Virgin and Child, by 

 Mabuse ; The Great Triptych of the Adoration of the Virgin and Child, 

 with SS. John Baptist and John Evangelist, by Hendrick Bles; St. Sebastian, 

 by an unknown sixteenth century painter, and the magnificent portraits of 

 Petrius Egidius and Erasmus by Quinten Matsys and Hans Holbein the 

 Younger. The Italian school is illustrated by Sebastiano del Piombo's 

 Portrait of a Lady — "Violante," by Paris Bordone — the Portrait of a 

 Venetian Nobleman, by Tintoretto (?), and the Virgin, Child, and Infant 

 St. John, by Lodovico Carracci. Next follow the Spanish and French 

 pictures, with Juan de Pareja, by Velasquez, and Claude's Decline of the 

 Roman Empire. The Netherlandish pictures of the seventeenth century are 



