To question 214 I may be allowed to reply, that the effect of moonlight upon the face of those who sleep exposed to it in hot climates is very severe indeed, producing an appearance not very unlike that of a swollen and putrescent corpse. The Psalmist refers to it Ps. cxxi. 6.; and all who have lived in the East Indies are well acquainted with the phenomenon.
The _Antiquarian Gleanings in the North of England, being Examples of Antique Furniture, Plate, Church Decorations, Objects of Historical Interest, &c., drawn and etched by William B. Scott, Government School of Design, Newcastle_, which has just been completed, is a valuable addition to the numerous works which have been published of late years illustrative of archæology in its most picturesque aspect. It will be seen from the title that Mr. Scott has not confined himself to any one class of objects; in some cases historical associations having determined his choice; in others, the rarity of examples of the object illustrated; in others, their intrinsic beauty. The Chair of the Venerable Bede, and the Swords of Cromwell, Fairfax, and Lambert, belong to the first of these divisions; as the Nautilus Cup set in gold, and the Ivory Cup, both the property of Mr. Howard of Corby, belong to the last: and so much taste and skill has Mr. Scott shown in the whole of the thirty-eight plates, as quite to justify the hope expressed by him, that in all of them the connoisseur and the artist will find something worthy attention.
We have before us two books to which we desire to direct the attention of our readers. The first is _A Manual of Ecclesiastical History, from the First to the Twelfth Century_, by the Rev. E. S. Foulkes, M.A., the main plan of which has been borrowed from Spanheim, and the materials principally compiled from that writer, Spondanus, Mosheim and Fleury, Gieseler, Döllinger, and others, respecting whom, however, Mr. Foulkes states, "I believe I have never once trusted to them on a point involving controversy without examining their authorities." "Let nobody," he elsewhere observes, "think that he can fairly know Church History from reading a single modern historian, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic; the only way of getting a correct view, unless a person should have time to consult the originals, is to read two opposite writers, side by side, and balance one set of facts against the other. Yet even so it is hopeless to get a true appreciation of past times except through cotemporary writings; I have therefore appended to the catalogue of modern historians a few of the principal cotemporary works, disciplinary, doctrinal, and historical, from age to age down to the end of the twelfth century, which would be a far more trustworthy clue to the real sentiments of the times than could be gained from a more modern source, and could not, I think, fail to be a corrective to narrow misapprehensions, and a great help to the student whose wish it is to be fair and candid." These extracts from Mr. Foulke's preface (which contains brief notices of the principal modern writers on the subject) sufficiently explain the nature of his very useful and carefully compiled volume.