The Cotswolds, Painted by G. F. Nicholls, Described by Francis
Duckworth, and The Peak Country, Painted by W. Biscombe Gardner, Described by A. R. Hope Moncrieff (A. and C. Black, 6s. each), carry on worthily a. series which has established itself in the favour of all readers of taste. It is not easy to say which is the more interesting subject; they are certainly very different. The Cotswold country has its "peak," though Cleeve Cloud is barely half the height of Kinder Scout, in Derbyshire ; and there are spots of great beauty in it,—the wooded valleys on which one suddenly comes in some stretch of bare-looking upland are particularly attractive. But it is, as a whole, a country which man has made. It is mainly a land of the plough; possibly its inhabitants wish that it were less so, now that mutton is so much more paying a thing than wheat. But whatever it has to show has had justice done to it in this very pleasing book. Mr. Duckworth expects to be reproached by the critics for what he has left out, and certainly we miss one or two beauties that we should have been glad to see. Still, we are very grateful for what we get. Painswick, Chipping Campden, Cirencester—which has as fine a High Street as any English town—and the headwaters of the Thames, not to speak of other scenes, supply excellent subjects for pen and pencil. And the reader will not be less pleased when he turns to the Derbyshire volume. Here, we may say, Nature is more in evidence, though there is the magnificent exception of Chatsworth. Perhaps there is more history about the Gloucester- shire country, where not a little of the Civil War fighting went on. Derbyshire was scarcely touched by it, though, it is true, the country is memorable as the terminus ad quern of "the Forty- five." We must not forget, however, the tragic story of Eyam and its valiant rector, Mompesson, and his not less valiant helper, Thomas Stanley (Stanley was ejected in 1662, but stayed on in
the parish, and bravely helped to fight the plague). Tarley Pike, Miller's Dale, the High Tor, Matlock, may be mentioned as
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