hardly comes under the designation of a general history of the parish; as is the case also with Mr. Charles Spence's " Account of the Church at Camberwell," printed in the Magazine of Fine Arts for November and December, 1833, and subsequently issued, to a very limited extent, in a separate form.

A gentleman of the same name, Mr. George Spence, formerly the respected Vestry-Clerk of Camberwell, during his tenure of office, printed three small works, chiefly on parochial law; one of these related to parish vestries generally; another contained an account of the Trust and other property belonging to Camberwell; and the third, which was never completed, comprised a collection of the parochial regulations of the vestries of Camberwell, with the general law as applicable to them.

Mr. W. G. Poole printed, in 1838, a small duodecimo volume, containing, “ Rules and Regulations of the Parish of St. Giles, Camberwell, Surrey; with a Statement of the Duties of the several Officers of the Parish, and the Local Acts of Parliament."

The character of this work is expressed by its title, which, at the same time, sufficiently distinguishes it from the present attempt.

The principal object of the Author has been to make a readable book without degenerating into gossip; and to state things concisely, clearly, and without resort to legal technicalities, or terms but little understood by the general reader.

It will occasion little surprise, if, in some instances, the style of this work be censured as flippant and discursive beyond all precedent. But the Author's first anxiety has been to secure perusal; and for this purpose he has thrown

the volume into a new form, and endeavoured, by a continuous and smoothly-flowing narrative, to induce even those who detest the very name of topography, to bestow a favourable glance upon his pages. The running titles at the top of each, will serve to lighten the labour, and he may probably thus succeed in obtaining some measure of attention.

The Work is not overburthened with references, though nothing is stated for truth, of the correctness of which the writer is not satisfied. Quotations from printed works cannot be well authenticated unless the particular edition is referred to; and it may often happen that the reader can have no access to the one cited. Much matter usually printed in the notes, has been in this Work blended with the text, that as little interruption as possible may be offered to the easy perusal of it. Notes are but lengthy parentheses; and, like them, may be almost always dispensed with.

The strong prejudice that exists against topography generally, arises very probably from the fact that it seldom proceeds on philosophical principles. The philosopher finds "all in all," and there is no reason why the local historian should not be a philosopher.

History, indeed, in its unlimited range, is a theme of such magnitude, that we are compelled to divide and apportion it; and this apportionment gives birth to local history; which cannot therefore be of so insignificant and unimportant a character as many would imagine it. One great recommendation of topographical researches is, that they deal so much with facts. We take them for our nucleus; and if the gems of an exuberant fancy will cling and crystallize around them, we

are still on much safer ground than the learned Frenchman, who having elaborated a brilliant theory, on being told that facts were all against him, exclaimed with the greatest sang froid, "Eh bien !-Vare well! so moche de vors for de facts!"

The time is gone by when men might shut themselves up in the study to compose truth, or invent certainties. The geologist does not, in these days, closet himself to concoct theories: he wanders to the quarry, and there deciphers, as he best may, the mystic "medals of creation." The antiquary rambles round the moated hill, and accurately surveys the earthwork that assures him the "lone mother of dead nations," was once a sojourner in ours. The archæologist visits our venerable churches, and from the style and character of their construction, arrives at some definite and certain clue to the date of their erection. One by one, he contemplates their sepulchral brasses and monuments, and with these he will necessarily associate the changes that have passed over the neighbourhood since that venerable edifice was erected. By a mere chronological arrangement of these memorials, he will have before him a series of documents, illustrative not only of the annals of his own parish, but of British History generally -the stoled priest of other days-the armed warrior—the superstitious devotee-and the "valiant, wise, and religious gentleman," of later times. For almost every parish church is a documentary History of England, and supplies us with information equally valuable for its interest and integrity. Or he whose bent leads him to investigate the domestic

history of his forefathers, traverses with echoing tread the fine ancestral homes of England, and, with his own eyes, sees how "the power of fairy hands" has been employed

"To raise the ceiling's fretted height

Each panel in achievements clothing:
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing."

Nor does he, by such personal investigations, arrive at a knowledge of facts alone; the principles and deductions which these furnish are of more extended application, and independently of the mere interest they possess as matters of curiosity, may be laid up with great advantage for future use. A few illustrations of these remarks will be met with in the present volume.

Chronology, though generally so little regarded in researches of this nature, is of the utmost importance to a proper elucidation of the subject. In the present instance, such an arrangement has been adopted as shall best illustrate its value.

Commencing with the Geology of the district, the Author has brought forward such facts as he was sufficiently fortunate to meet with, deducing from them those conclusions which they seemed to warrant, and which are singularly illustrative of the changes which the soil itself must have undergone, probably before man was placed upon it, and unquestionably long prior to any other records of its history. In this department, his anxiety has been to proceed cautiously, giving from personal observation, and other sources, such data as he is well assured may be implicitly relied on. No class of individuals are so fond of hypothesis and generalization as

Geologists; and experience, in some instances at least, has shewn how little, even those who rank deservedly high in the literary and scientific world, are to be relied on beyond the range of their own actual experiments and researches. Fact must be the basis of all argument, and we should be well content to forego any credit that might attach to the most brilliant theory in the world, for the sake of making never so trivial an addition to the truths of this delightful study. One new and highly interesting discovery, at least, is communicated through the medium of this work-the exhumation of the tooth of a gigantic pachyderm from the London Basin near Sydenham.

Camberwell in the Roman era has next been glanced at, and considerable attention bestowed on the supposed camp at Ladlands-hill. Whilst the author's own ideas on the subject are expressed without reserve, he has honestly defended the opinion of others; and, so far from feeling any thing allied to vexation, if proved to be in error, no one will rejoice more than himself to find the existence of this interesting work established beyond a doubt.

The conjectures hazarded on the etymologies of local names, are nothing more than conjectures. The history of Camberwell subsequent to the Conquest, is of course meagre and imperfect, though many of the facts brought forward are certainly new to many; and the arrangement under which the whole are given, invests this part of the subject perhaps throughout, with some degree of originality.

The late venerable Church of St. Giles, no less from the