The Story of Sir Richard Whittington. Written and illustrated by
E. Carr. (Longmans.)—This is a handsome volume, better illustrated, we are bound to say, than written. The drawings are very graceful, and pretty with a somewhat conventional prettiness. The ballad verse is but of poor quality. There is some carious information, for which the author is mainly indebted to Mr. Lyson's "Model Merchant of the Middle Ages," about Whittington's life. Mr. Carr seems to think that
the discovery in a house inhabited by the Whittington family in 1460 of a sculpture representing a boy carrying a cat proves the story of " Whit-
tington's oat." May not the sculpture have been the origin of the story? We would suggest that the phrase " barathrum vincendo morosum" in Whittington's epitaph is not "an allusion to his overcom- ing the depths of poverty, or bridging over the difference between rich and poor by his acts of charity," but a reference to his having rebuilt, with great improvements, the gaol of Newgate. " Barathrum " would be a not unlikely word for a mediaeval Latinist to employ in this sense.
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