M. (?) SKIPWITH. Below, on the same sheet, is the extract from Beresford's letter in Mary Chaumont's hand, thus: Copie-Hardwith lands will clear about 12 pds p. anum, Daglands about 3 pds besides y anuity; y house I liue in is only a minster lease charged at 8 pds in their books. It payes 4l. 1s. 11d. taxes besides out rent. Y rest of her lands mentioned in the will are 3 old stables and 3 gardens wch scarcely clear ymselves-[ Mary Chaumout writes on in her aunt's name] According to these perticulars, as you haue stated them, I should be much ouerseen to sel myne and my nephew and neeces right for y above said sum; besides, tho a seuere act lately made against Catholiques for taking away the two thirds of their estates to pay y° debts of the nation, there has bine none made that I have her'd off to preuent their inheriting of estates. that being [80], tis out of y power, sir, to frustrate us of what my sister has left us. Pray send me y perticulars of the lands and houses shee was possesed off. you'l say perhaps that you haue done it already, but as I dont well understand ye amount you giue makes me take yo liberty to desire you'l repeate the same in a more clear manner, and also send me the name

of ye lawer made ye will and them signed it you forgott to make mention off in yR copie y" sent.

Mdlle. Chaumont's naïve allusion to the "severe act lately made against Catholiques for taking away the two thirds of their estates to pay y debts of the nation" reads like a sarcastic commentary on the phase of anti-Papist policy just then in course of development. The original purely pious attempt to stamp out the old religion by various forms of coercion had practically given place to a kind of toleration, under which the Papists seem to have got into their hands such a considerable amount of property that the Government had now decided to reap the reward of their virtuous leniency, by applying the accumulated wealth of their victims for the convenient purpose of replenishing the Exchequer. Not counting the Test Acts of 25 and 30 Charles II. (which were purely political in their main object, and operated against other Nonconformists besides the Catholics), and passing over for the present the notable exception of the Act of 1700, there had been almost a com

plete lull in the legislative persecution of the Catholics since the beginning of Charles I.'s reign down to the end of Anne's. In 1715 a commission was appointed by Act of Parliament to inquire into the property of traitors and Popish recusants, and estates held for superstitious uses.* This was immediately followed by an Act calling on all Papists, in default of their taking the oaths of obedience and abjuring the Roman doctrines of the mass, to register their estates. In default of registration, two-thirds of their estates were to third to the informer.t be forfeited to the king, and the remaining oneThe grounds of this

legislation appear pretty clearly from the preamble of the latter Act, which sets out that, notwithstanding the leniency so long extended to them, bellion (ie, the Jacobite rising), and by this the Papists had been concerned in the recent remeans, and by constantly inviting foreign invaders into the country, they had brought a vast expense on the nation, of which it was reasonable that they should bear a large share. This enactment was just in force at the date of Mrs. Skipwith's last letter, and was afterwards supplemented by several amending statutes. reported in 1719 the registration of property to The commissioners the value of more than 380,000l. per annum, and Walpole, five years later, obtained the passing of an Act for raising exclusively out of the estates of Catholics a sum of 100,000l. ‡ CHAS. FREDC. HARDY.

66

Gray's Inn.

(To be continued.)

Printer near forty years)." The 'Historical An-
tiquities,' 104 pp., follow these leaves, a transla-
tion of the poem, Mr. Hailstone says by Dr. Dering,
but does not seem to have noticed 'The Pathetick
Conclusion,' which is evidently from the old man's
hand (and heart), and quite in his line :-
Thus have I sung of York: and in my Rhymes
Mix'd prime Affairs with antient Roman Times:
Nor is it right, that here my Labours end;
If I, as once, had Money, with a Friend:
My dear Cassandra-see as tho' she sits*
Who sweeten'd care, and kept me in my Wits,
For it remains to show how Saxons came;

Then Danes and Normans, that once bore a Name:
A longer Journey, sure it doth require;
With timely Space, for clear poetic Fire:
But my weak Pegasus, I really doubt,
For neither one nor other, can hold out:
And Hespus, oft, my milk white Peace invades :
My Evening Star points distant blissful shades.
Let him whose Wit and Matter shall combine
Persue the Plan, this Project fair of mine:
Whose Fortune 'tis to have full Time to spare;
With Spirit equal for his Country dear;
And favour'd by Apollo, high, to raise,

Its Praise deserv'd in sweet harmonious Lays:
But ah! I fear, the Muses will not find,
A Patron proper for so great a Mind:
To Dangers driven in Confusions hurl'd:
No favour from a strange opposing World;
Unless the Kind, as first from Heav'n they came,
To grant, what they deserve, poetick Fame.
With needful Help, I modestly may speak,

To swim like Duck; and dive such Depths as Drake.
Nor can a Poet, howso'er inspir'd

Be much esteem'd where Criticism 's admir'd:
Such as proceed from Cens'rers ill I mean

That without mercy, Labours great disdain:
Who either can't or do not, show their Skill;
Tho' they have Parts, with Fortune at their Will:
Fine paper too idoneal Types for Jargon?t

And charming Sense, with Rhetorick in the Bargain
Like Musicks Discords sweet with right resolving;
Or Riddles cunning when by Wits a solving:
What I have done is not for Love of Praise:
Nor Profit, more than useful at these Days;
Few to relieve me; tho' so strictly try'd;
Nor any Memmius o'er me to preside;
But when deserted by Ungrateful Friends,
Delightful Studies make some small Amends:
At least the Mind from Troubles disengage
And smooth the harsh severities of Age;
Enrich our Souls for greater Joys above,
Where All is Glory, Extacy, and Love.
How the old man, who seems to have gone about,
as we say, "with a clip on his shoulder," must
have chuckled over his line,

To swim like Duck, and dive such Depths as Drake.
ROBERT COLLYER.

New York.

"TRAITÉ CURIEUX SUR L'ENLÈVEMENT DU PRINCE DE FURSTENBERG. Avec des Exemples & des Réflexions importantes touchant l'Immunité

* A note in MS. on the margin reads "dear Adeliza." †The poor old printer's types quite give out at this word.

des Ambassadeurs. A Ville-Franche, chez Charles de la Vérité, 1676."-This work is fully described by M. Willems (Les Elzevier,' art. 2105), who ascribes it to the press of Foppens. With a copy of it which I was fortunate enough to pick up in a binding by Simier is bound a second tractate, consisting of three opuscules, which M. Willems has apparently not seen, and which bear on the same subject. The first is "Discours sur l'Estat present de l'Europe et des Estats des Provinces Unies. Publiez & Imprimez à Paris, pour amuser leurs Peuples par des faussetez visibles le 17. Avril, 1674." The date is 1674, and there is no name of place, but the title carries a sphere which I fancy is that of Foppens. On p. 39 is a second title: "Lettre du Roy tres-chrestien A tous les Ministres qui le servent dans les Pays Estrangers, touchant l'Enlevement du Prince Furstembergh [sic]. Ensemble la proposition faite a Vienne de la part du Roy de Suede. Avec la reponse rendue de la part de sa M. Imperiale, sur le mesme sujet. 1674." The third title, at p. 55, is: "Lettre d'un Gentilhomme Flamand a un Chevalier Anglois de la Chambre des Communes du Parlement, au Sujet de l'Emprisonnemnet [sic] de Monsieur le Prince Guillaume de Furstembergh. 1674." The collation is 69 numbered pages, including titles and address to the reader; two pages unnumbered, giving a list of towns abandoned by the French after the capture of Norden by the Prince of Orange; and one page blank.

I am not very sanguine as to obtaining information concerning these works, though I shall be glad of such. Possessors of M. Willems's work, however, may be glad to hear of an Elzevir annexe" that seems to me to have escaped the keen scrutiny of that bibliographer. The letter of a Flemish gentleman, I may say, is signed De Beauprez. URBAN.

thou

Guy Mannering, chap. XXVIll,

shortlies" St. Ronan's Well,'' chap. xvii.); "Trip like the noodles of Hogs-Norton when the pigs play on the organ" (Woodstock,' chap. iii.); "Tace is Latin for a candle" ('Abbot,' chap. xviii; 'Redgauntlet,' chap. xi.), quoted, probably, from Swift, although it occurs in Dampier's Voyages,' 1686. There is an amusing story told (I think by Washington Irving in his Abbotsford and Newstead') how Scott said to his wife, who continued repeating "Is So-and-so really dead?" ad nauseam, "Faith, my dear, if he isn't dead they 've done him a great injustice, for they 've buried him," to the discomfiture of a young dominie present, who, in his burst of laughter, spirted the tea, which he was in the act of lifting to his lips, all over the breakfast table. This joke, with one or two verbal differences, is in 'Polite Conversation.' Of course I am not suggesting that Scott is open to the charge of plagiarism in using tags which he no doubt considered were well known. It would sound awkward, not to say affected, if whenever we quoted some well-worn phrase from 'Hamlet' or 'Henry IV.,' we were to add "as Shakespeare says. Besides, Swift, as he says himself in his introduction, did not invent these proverbial phrases.

What is the exact date of 'Polite Conversation'? A correspondent of 'N. & Q.' (4th S. x. 230) says it is believed to have been published in 1706, but in 7th S. v. 260 the date is stated to have been about 1731." Is it not known for certain? JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

Ropley, Alresford,

'AMOURS OF MESSALINA, LATE QUEEN OF ENGLAND,' London, 1689, 12mo.-This scandalous work-in which views at one time currently held by the Whig party in England with regard to the accouchement of Mary of Este, the wife of James II., and the birth of the Prince of Wales, subsequently the Pretender, are mixed with scandals concerning Lewis XIV.- -was translated immediately upon its appearance into French and German. In England its authorship has remained anonymous. French bibliographers speak of it as due to Gregorio Leti, the author of Il Nipotismo di Roma,' 'Historia Genevrina,' &c. The parentage is not improbable. I should be glad to know, however, if there is any reason stronger than conjecture for assigning it to this fecund writer. URBAN.

LETTER OF JOSEPH GRIMALDI.-Your having published in 'N. & Q.' (7th S. vi. 24) an original letter of the above renowned actor which I sent in July last induces me to forward an accurate copy of another letter of his which I possess, which, though shorter and of less import, may perhaps be a fitting sequel to the former. I purchased it at the sale by Puttick & Simpson of some effects of the late W. Bland, Esq., of Holloway, on Feb. 17, 1881, as lot 153, p. 6, in

which was the Examiner, 1812, containing notices of J. Grimaldi. It is written on a small scrap of common paper, folded once; and the handwriting fully bears out the assertion in the text, being feeble, shaky, and badly formed, but legible and distinct. There is no date to it, but the reference to his second wife limits the period of writing to a narrow compass. She died, it seems, in 1835, and he only survived her until May, 1837; so it lies between these two, and we shall not be probably far wrong in fixing on 1836 as the year. The letter is as strong a contrast to the other in sentiment as in writing. That, indited in 1810, was when he was at the summit of fame, health, and wealth; while this opens to view the great actor bereft of all that made his life brighthealth, wealth, wife and son, occupation, applause, and success. It is, however, though pathetic, a more characteristic letter, and brings out the still genial, kindly nature of the veteran amidst all his losses and afflictions. It has not before been printed :Sadler's Wells.

My dear Friend,-I am very ill-my days of staging severely as to be scarcely able to lift this pen. Do are nearly over. I am aflict'd with reumatizm 80 come and see me. My poor Wife being dead I am all alone-but not kicking-unfortunately. I feel truely miserable: I am sure my end is aproaching. O for the days when I was delighting Audiences at Old Drury and the Wells! O will do all I can to assist yr poor Friend, but come and see your old Friend and have an hours chat with him. Come on Sunday, I shall have no one here but an old houskeeper. Come dear Friend and cheer me up. Your honest and true Friend,

"A parishioner of mine was telling me last night— November 5-that something like fifty or sixty years ago it was the traditional belief in this county and the neighbouring county of York that any farmer was at liberty to shoot on that day on his neighbour's farm, or in the preserves of his esquire, to his heart's content, and that, being November the 5tb, there was no process of law by which he could be touched for so doing."

Such a belief was certainly current, only it extended further than my informant states. It was held that every one-not farmers only-might shoot where they would on that day. I have heard my father say that when he was a lad and a young man-that is, from 1805 to 1825-every one who could procure a gun used to turn out, and that landowners and game-preservers never thought of hindering them. The belief lasted much later. Somewhere about fifty years ago my father was riding to church on November 5th, when he met on the highway a notorious poacher, Jack Jackson, with his gun in his hand. My father, who had a liking for the man, pointed out to him the risk he

was running. The man replied, "No, squire; I'm safe to-day. Don't you remember it's the 5th of November?"

I am almost certain that this belief has no foundation either in statute or customary law. It would be interesting to know whether it was confined to Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, or whether it extended over the rest of England; and also what was the foundation on which the opinion rested.

The same notion prevailed as to Good Friday; but as it falls at a time when there is little game to be had, and what birds there are have become very wild, the people did not turn out in the same multitudinous fashion.

Bottesford Manor, Brigg.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

LADIES IN PARLIAMENT. "Gurdon, in his 'Antiquities of Parliament,' says:The ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon Witas. The Abbess Hilda (says Rede) presided in an ecclesiastical synod. In Wighfried's great council at Becconceld, A.D. 694, the abbesses sat and deliberated; and five of them signed decrees of that council along with the king, bishops, and nobles. King Edgar's charter to the Abbey of Crowland, A.D. 961, was with the consent of the nobles and abbesses who signed the charter. In Henry III's and Edward I.'s time four abbesses were summoned to parliament, namely, of Shaftsbury, Berking, St. Mary of Winchester, and of Wilton. In the 35th of Edward III. were summoned by writ to parliament to appear there by their proxies, namely, Mary, Countess of Norfolk; Alienor, Countess of Ormond; Anna Despenser; Philippa, Countess of March; Johanna Fitzwater; Agneta, Countess of Pembroke; Mary de St. Paul; Mary de Ross Matilda, Countess of Oxford; Catherine, Countess of Athol. These ladies were called ad colloquium, ad tractatum, by their proxies, a privilege peculiar to the peerage, to appear and act by proxy."

The above excerpt (from an old volume of the defunct Family Friend) is worthy of a corner in 'N. & Q' as witnessing to the fact that the usurpation of male offices by the fair sex is not a modern craze, but one that is venerable from its very antiquity. History repeats itself-ergo. J. B. S.

Manchester.

hulsters with 'oods!

The top-coats and muckingtogs, Charlie, the rugs and the Lawn-tennis? Oh, turn it up-turn it up! Beastly to see With shiny black muckintogs smothered, a-hiding their pooty gals snappy fal-lals!

By the way, those Punch poems ascribed to 'Arry supply a very valuable mine to the collector of modern slang words and phrases. CUTHBERT BEDE.

A SPECIMEN OF PURE ENGLISH.-In chap. xxi. of the 'Outlines of Comparative Philology,' by Schele de Vere, published at New York in 1853, I find two clever specimens of the use of English words. The former contains a large number of words of French origin, whilst the latter is intended to be almost wholly written in words of Anglo-Saxon origin.

The curious point about these specimens is that the latter, in particular, is singularly inaccurate. Thus we are told that "the reaper plied his scythe, piled up sheaves and hauled his wheat"; where the words italicized are supposed to be all native. Of course, plied is of French origin; so is hauled; and piled is, if not French, at any rate Latin. The same may be said of the words flail, tanner, warrior, launched, and market; all introduced in a similar manner. The description also needlessly brings in such words as dominion, pure, &c.

66

It is, however, easy to reconstruct and amend the example so as to make it rigidly accurate. I venture to do this; and submit the following specimen of English," in which none but native words occur. Let it be understood that it is not original, but mainly copied from the book named above, with numerous alterations:

"The might of the Norman hardly made its way into the home of the Saxon, but drew back at the threshold of his house. There, beside the fire in the kitchen and the hearth in his hall, he met his beloved kindred. The bride, the wife, and the husband, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, tied to each other by love, friendship, and all kindly feelings, knew nothing dearer than their own sweet home. The Englishman's cows and sheep, still grazing in his fields and meadows, gave him milk and meat and fleeces of wool. The herdsman watched them in spring and summer; the ploughman drew his furrows with help of oxen or horses, and afterwards harrowed them. At the time of harvest, the busy reaper was at work with his scythe, whilst others gathered and bound up the sheaves; and with all gladness the harvestmen drove the wain, laden with wheat, or oats, or rye, from the field to the barn. The wain had its wheels, each with its nave and spokes and felloes; and the team bent heavily beneath the yoke. In his trade by sea and land, the Englishman still sold and bought; in the small shop, or at the road-side stall, he shewed his goods and had all his dealings. Whether weaver or clothier, baker or miller, saddler or smith, each made his own living in his own way. He lent or borrowed, took his neighbour's word, and with skill and care throve and grew wealthy. Later, when he longed once more for freedom, he readily grasped his weapons, whether axe, or sword, or bill, or

*A.S. cycen; but a borrowed word, from Lat. coquina.