HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN HERTFORDSHIRE.
Highways and Byways in Hertfordshire. By Herbert W. Tompkins. (Macmillan and Co. 6s.)—We need hardly say that this is a pleasant, readable book. A gentleman who knows how to use his pen, and has wandered about a county which, besides having interests of its own, has benefited by the overflow- ing of London, has much that is interesting to tell us. Yet we are not wholly satisfied with this volume. We do not quite understand what Mr. Tompkins means by Hertfordshire. The
county has had its boundaries changed of late years; it would not have been inappropriate to give the old and the new. His- toiically, of course, all that has been Hertfordshire still remains so, while the newly adopted parishes may claim to have some notice. Hadley is such, we believe ; Chipping Barnet still belongs to the county, we imagine. Though Barnet is certainly not a "by- way," a highway it as certainly is. Did not the Great North Road, in fact two Great North Roads, run through it? Do not the over-frequent public-houses remain to testify to the old coach- ing days ? To change the subject of complaint, why is there no mention of the junior Christ's Hospital at Hertford ? Why none of that delightful little hamlet of Oxhey, near Watford, —possibly it is delightful no longer. Why, again, is Aldenham, with its well-known grammar school, forgotten. The notice of Cassiobury is overbrief, and that of Hatfield scarcely equal to the occasion. Broxbourne is almost passed over. It is an important place to a multitude of East London anglers. Generally, we see no adequate appreciation of the Lea as a fishing river. Perhaps Mr. Tompkins does not care about fishing. But he who writes about a county is bound to care for everything. We see nothing about the New River and Sir Hugh Middleton; yet that was a great work, and the man was one who lived before his time. Mr. F. L. Griggs's illustrations are a little hard and literal. They leave nothing to the imagination.
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