_The History of Newcastle and Gateshead in the 14th and 15th Centuries._, by Mr. R. WELFORD (Scott, 14, Paternoster-square), introduces us to a district which in the course of the present summer will be visited by the Archæological Institute of Great Britain; its appearance, therefore, is well timed. Mr. Welford has brought together and has arranged with considerable skill a mass of extracts from the records of “the King’s Town of the New Castle upon the Tyne,” founded by a son of the Conqueror; and in his introductory chapter he has given a sketch of the early growth of the town, with its charters, its commerce, and its pageants. The only fault that we can find is that this chapter is far too brief; for we should have been pleased to see more of Mr. Welford’s own handiwork, and of his comments on the most interesting materials which he has brought together, and which extend from A.D. 1301 down to the close of A.D. 1500. For a record of local annals the book strikes us as coming very nearly up to the standard of perfection. _Gwilt’s Encyclopædia of Architecture_ (Longmans) is a work so thoroughly established as an authority that it needs no commendation of ours. If any proof of its value, and the public appreciation of that value be needed, it will be enough to say that it has reached its seventh edition. Thus, as to the two previous impressions, many amendments have been made, which the progress of time had rendered necessary. But for the present edition “The Tables of the English Cathedrals have been compiled; many chapters on public and private buildings have been re-written, and new ones have been inserted: the list of architects and their principal works has been removed from the glossary and re-compiled, the list of architectural publications has been enlarged, and formed into a separate list, while the glossary itself has received numerous additional terms and illustrations, together with such other amendments as appeared desirable.” Though the work is styled an “Encyclopædia,” the only portion of it which is alphabetically arranged is the “Glossary” at the end; the rest of the book is really an elaborate history of architecture, from the earliest period of a semi-barbaric age. In it Mr. Gwilt carries his readers through the annals of architecture, Druidical and Celtic, Pelasgic or Cyclopean, Babylonian, Persian, Jewish and Phœnician, Indian, Egyptian, Chinese, Mexican, Arabian, Moorish, or Saracenic, Grecian, Etruscan, Roman, Byzantine, and so on to the rise of that Pointed Style to which the name of Gothic has clung so strongly. He devotes sections also to a general view of the Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian styles; and then occupies the bulk of the work with the successive styles of architecture which have prevailed in this country, and the Pointed Architecture of France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and other continental countries. The second and third parts of the work