SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading ice notice such Books of the week as have not bun reserved for review in other forms.]
The Ancestor, No. 1. (A. Constable and Co. 5s. net.)—We offer a hearty welcome to this the first number of a new "Quarterly Review of County and Family History, Heraldry, and Antiquities." Whatever there is of programme or promise generally is to be found, in very modest shape, in the "Editorial Notes." The subject of the new periodical is sufficiently indicated by the sub-title. How it is to be treated we may gather from the remark that "there are few subjects, if any, on which wilder statements are made and received than that of family antiquity." An article of fourteen pages in the present number is devoted te "What is Believed," and an effective beginning is made in the destructive sense with various statements made on what would seem good authority. Even the official Heralds, whose dignified leisure must surely protect them from obvious errors, do not escape reproach. The College is seriously indicted for granting, on evidence which the writer thinks scarcely even doubtful, the Bedford arms (with an insignificant difference) to Lord Russell of Killowen. The whole of the paper is good reading ; so, indeed, are many other things in the number, to which we would gladly devote more space if only such were available.
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