There is a reason for the conformity of quality which marks these books. The enviable and much-sought office of “ official printer to the city was given only to workmen of established reputation. Before appointment they undertook to produce good work at a fair price. W. JAGGARD, Capt.

Entertainer for Cornwall and Devon, or the Agreeable and Instructive Repository (1782– 1815), and Weekly Entertainer and West of England Miscellany (1816).

father, Ralph Price, Treasurer of Bridewell Hospital in 1836. In the beginning is written, very scarce.

Essex Lodge, Ewell.

LEONARD C. PRICE.

LIFE IN BOMBAY' (12 S. viii. 29).— Has been attributed to James Gray; possibly a son of James Gray, poet and linguist, who died in India in 1830, where, says 'The Dictionary of National Biography,' his family mostly settled-and also to a Miss Cormack. The lithographs in the book are from drawings by the author. Do these bear any name (or initials) other than that of the lithographers? R. B.

LONDON POSTMARKS (12 S. vii. 290, 365; viii. 18, 34). One of the most objectionable of these, perhaps, is current at the present time for ship-letters, viz., "London: Paquebot." As the letters are conveyed on English vessels surely the older form "ship letter " might be preserved in place of the mixture of languages noted above.

English postmarks, too, are sadly illegible -yet those from abroad (United States or Switzerland, for example) are clearly articulated throughout showing what can be done. R. B.

Upton,

THE WESTERN MISCELLANY,' 1775 AND 1776 (12 S. viii. 11).-Goadby's publication circulated in several counties in the West of England (see Western Antiquary, iii. 50), and would seem to have borne different titles in different districts. 'The Tercentenary Hand-List of Newspapers' refers to it as The Weekly Miscellany, and mentions vols. i.-v., vii.-xix. (1773–83), and again as The Weekly Entertainer; or Agreeable and Instructive Repository, &c., and mentions vol. iii., &c., 1784-1818, and N.S. 1823-25. W. S. B. H. finds it called The Western Miscellany, while other titles are Weekly

Moore Carew, King of the Beggars. Some think, however, that it was Goadby who was the author of the book (see Western Antiquary, vol. vii. p. 86; see also 'The Gypsy Bibliography,' published by the Gypsy Lore Society in 1914, and at 2 S. iii. 4; iv. 330,

401, 522).

M.

ENGLISH VIEWS BY CANALETTO (12 S. vii. 448).—A few years ago & most interesting collection of paintings of Old London by Canaletto, Scott, and Boydell were sold at Christie's, King Street, St. James's Square. Many of these were purchased by the late Mr. Henry Andrade Harben, a good and enthusiastic London collector, son of the late Sir Henry Herben, first Mayor of Hampstead.

Mr. Harben bequeathed a number of these to the London County Council, of which body he had been a member. Some of them were hung in various parts of the Council's offices at Spring Gardens and I think I recollect one of old Westminster Bridge being among them.

I hope this information may be useful to MRS. HILDA F. FINBERG, and that it may be worth investigating further.

E. E. NEWTON.

Hampstead, Upminster, Essex.

CHARTULARIES (12 S. vii. 330, 414).-Gross (Sources and literature of English History from the earliest times to about 1485,' London, 2nd edn., 1915) gives a lot of information with regard to these, both published and unpublished. The manuscript index volumes in the Manuscript Room at the British Museum are specially arranged under this heading and are drawn up with admirable clearness. I would recommend Dr. Rowe to make friends with the authorities there.

The Beaulieu Chartulary is in the possession of the Duke of Portland; a MS. transcript by Harbin (eighteenth century), collated with the original in 1831 by Sir

in Gramer and so create hym Master. Then shall the Bedell purvay for every Master in Gramer a shrewde Boy, whom the Master in Gramer shall bete openlye in the Scolys, and the Master in Gramer shall give the Boy a Grote for Hys Labour, and another grote to hym that provydeth and the Palmer, &c. de sigulis. And thus endythe the Acte in that Facultye." "

We know of the existence of similar ceremonies at Oxford. The degree was not a popular one; very few names are mentioned in the University register of either University.

F. A. Russell.

"Harkee, my girl, how far have you overrun the Constable? I told him that the debt amounted to eleven pounds."

WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

It appears from the New English Dictionary that this phrase, with the meaning of spending more money than one has, was used much earlier than Stevenson and Besant. Brewster in his 'Dictionary of Phrase and Fable' explains the phrase by saying, "The constable arrests debtors and of course represents the creditor; wherefore to overrun the constable is to overrun your credit account." G. F. R. B.

Yes, people used to talk of doing that in the last century. Perhaps their expenditure led them into excesses, beyond those with which a parish constable could deal. The expression may have originated on the stage as many others have that are now almost unintelligible from want of context.

ST. SWITHIN.

To overdraw one's banking account, or spend without caution. This is the usual meaning, and though Shakespeare did not use the proverb, a phrase in 'Macbeth illustrates it: "To outrun the pauser, reason. There is another possible meaning of the saying, whereby in outrunning the policeman you could secure safety, instead of losing it. Old Bell Yard, Fleet Street, at one time, had nearly two scores of taverns, each with a "bolt-hole " at the rear. Some of the drinkers there, up to the eyes in debt, at a given warning, drinking-vessels in hand, would sally forth down the back yards, and so beyond the jurisdiction of Fleet Prison bailiffs, ever on the prowl for victims.

In Scotland "constable is the name of a very large tumbler or glass goblet, out of which a guest is compelled to drink should he fail to consume less than the average drink of the assembled company. At the 'Radish feast on May 12, celebrated at Levens Hall, near Kendal, each visitor stands on one leg only, gives the toast: Luck to Levens as long as the Kent flows,' and then drains the large glass "constable (see at 5 S. viii. 248).

66

If he requires the constable" recharged, the chances are he won't repeat the feat on one leg, in which case he would "outrun the constable." W. JAGGARD, Capt.

MATTHEW PARIS (12 S. viii. 28).—The passage asked for is in the Chronica Majora,' under the year 1243, on pp. 279, 280, vol iv. of Dr. H. R. Luard's Edition in the Rolls series. The occasion is a controversy between the Dominicans and Franciscans.

"Et quod terribile est, et in triste praesagium, per trecentos annos, amplius, ordo Monasticus tam festinanter non vel quadringentos, vel cepit praecipitium, sicut eorum ordo, quorum fratres, jam vix transactis viginti quatuor annis, primas in Anglia construxere mansiones, quarum Hi jam sunt, qui in sumptuosis et diatim ampliatis aedificia jam in regales surgunt altitudines. aedificiis, et celsis muralibus, thesauros exponunt impreciabiles, paupertatis limites et basim suae professionis, juxta prophetiam Hyldegardis Alemanniae, impudenter transgredientes."

On comparing this with the English version that was quoted it will be seen that "hardly forty," ought to be "hardly twentyfour," and that the Latin adverb qualifying the last word of the extract is not impru denter, but impudenter.

Dr. Luard notes that this passage, with what follows about the extortions of the friars from the dying, has been erased in the original MS. at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and that his text is here supplied from the Cottonian copy.

EDWARD BENSLY.

THE OLD HORSE GUARDS BUILDINGS (12 S. vii. 232, 258).-A note in The General Advertiser of Oct. 16, 1749, states that the old Horse Guards building was to be pulled down that winter.

The same paper (Oct. 12, 1750), states that "yesterday a free Passage was opened under the new Stone Arch at the Horse Guards, for Coaches, &c., into St. James' Park."

The present building must therefore have been well on the way to completion at that date. A. H. S.

THE BRITISH IN CORSICA (12 S. viii. 10, 35). I cannot find that there was any British occupation of Corsica in 1745 or in 1814. In 1794 it was captured. General

Sir David Dundas was in command of the British Force. A full account of the operations is given in Sir John Moore's Diary,' vol. i., published in 1904, by Edward Arnold. J. H. LESLIE.

GASPAR BARLAEUS (12 S. vii. 431, 513).— It may be of interest that the original manuscript of his Poemata' was sold in 1859 by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson when the manuscript library of Dawson Turner, Esq., of Great Yarmouth was dispersed. Its official description is thus given :

"No. 34. Barlaeus (Caspar) Poemata et Epistolae Latinae; half morocco, folio, pp. 40, 1636, &c."

It was bought by one Boone, and fetched WILFRED J. CHAMBERS.

148. 8d.

Clancarty, Regent Road, Lowestoft.

HUDDLINGS (12 S. vii. 311).—This must be the game of shovelboard which is fully described at 10 S. vii. 403. At 9 S. ii. 187

it is stated that to huddle means to make a winning cast at shovelboard.

F. JESSEL.

Notes on Books.

Studies in Statecraft: being Chapters, Biographical

and Bibliographical, mainly on the Sixteenth Century. By Sir Geoffrey Butler. (Cambridge University Press, 108. net.)

WE would advise students of International Law, and those general readers who are watching with interest the rise and progress of the League of Nations to read this book. It is no ponderous tome contributory to their severer studies; but a set of five pleasant essays reminding us that our problems concerning international relations have presented themselves, from the time when the Europe of the Middle Ages was broken up by

the Renaissance, not only to practical statesmen

but also to abstract thinkers.

The first essay is on Bishop Rodericus Sancius's dialogue De pace et bello.' The writer puts before us with admirable skill an outline of the political situation which called it forth, a situation chiefly determined-from the standpoint of Rodericus himself by the cautious policy of consolidation and preparation pursued by Pope Paul II. Rodericus was a propagandist of the finest order-and there is reason to take this dialogue as propaganda, intended to rebut the pacificism of the day at a time when pressure from the Turks and the unruliness of heresy made it desirable for the Church to show herself steady and militant. The pacificist speaker in the Dialogue is Platina whom, in all probability, Rodericus, as Castellan of St. Angelo, had, while he was writing, under his charge. The arguments on both sides have much in them common with ours of

to-day, but they are drawn also from the astronomy then current, are illustrated copiously from the classics, and are set out in the flowery style of the

Renaissance. Our author finds the value of the dialogue in Rodericus's power of getting behind phrases, of bringing his argument back to concrete fact-urging, for example, that it is idle to consider war apart from the reasons which set men to wage it. This line is what we might expect from Sancius's character and career-a man who deserves to be more widely known, and whom Sir Geoffrey Butler assists the student to discover by printing a list of his works (fortyfive in number) taken from Antonio's Biblioteca Hispana Vetus,' with some additions of his own.

The next essay deals briefly with French commentators on Roman Law-the French "civilians " of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their minds ran on the nature of sovereignty and the relation-impersonally considered of the princeps to the law; from their study of Roman Law was evolved the theory underlying the new monarchy.

The chapter on William Postel brings before us one of the most curious figures of a time when it was still possible for an erudite person more or less to take the whole of knowledge for his province. How Postel acquired his erudition is but obscurely indicated-except that it is clear that indomitable industry and tenacity played a great part therein. An obscure orphan, he had from his childhood to earn his own liveli

hood. At 26 he was so well known as an Oriental scholar that he was sent with Peter Giles to the