Various

“ It was not until 1812, when George Woodfall published the private letters of Junius, that the public first heard about "a vellum-bound" copy. If therefore the Anonymous knew before 1809 that some special interest did or would attach more to one vellum-bound book than another, he must be Junius himself; for Sampson Woodfall was dead, and when living had said nothing about it.
Ægrotus then favours us with the anecdote about "old Mr. Cox" the printer, and that Maclean corrected the proofs of Junius' Letters at his printing-office. ”

“ Further, allow me to remind you, that it is not more than six weeks since it was recorded in "Notes and Queries" that a "vellum-bound" Junius was lately sold at Stowe; and it is about two months since I learnt, on the same authority, that a Mr. Cramp had asserted that vellum-bound copies were so common, that the printer must have taken the Junius copy as a pattern; so that, if Ægrotus's facts be admitted, they would prove nothing. There is one circumstance, however, bearing on this question, which perhaps Ægrotus himself will think entitled to some weight. ”

“ Augustine himself: "In the first commandment, any similitude of God in the figments of men is forbidden to be worshipped, not because God hath not an image, but because no image of Him ought to be worshipped, but that which is the same thing that He is, nor yet that for Him but with Him."—See what is further cited from Augustine by Ussher in his Answer. ”

“ Under these circumstances, we are required to believe an anonymous story, which runs counter to all evidence, that we may superadd an absurdity.
Mr. Pickering further referred to Mr. Raphael West, as one who "could tell much on the subject." Here Ægrotus enlarges on the original, and tells us what this "much" consisted of. The story, professedly told by Benjamin West, about Maclean and Junius, on which Sir David Brewster founded his theory, may be found in Galt's Life of West. ”

“ Now Maclean embarked for India in December, 1773, or January, 1774, and was lost at sea, when "the young man," Master Raphael, could not have been more than seven years of age,—nay, to speak by the card, as Master Raphael heard one of Junius' letters read before it was published, and as the last was published in January, 1772, it follows, assuming that he was the eldest child, born in nine months to the hour, and that it was the very last letter that he heard read, he may have been five years and seven months old—a very "young man" indeed ”

“ Had each of these Societies, instead of joining with its fellows, put forth a separate Report, the probability is, it would not only have involved such Society in an expense far beyond what it would be justified in incurring, but the Report itself would not have excited half the interest which will now be created by a comparison of its papers with those of its associate Societies ”

“ The Rev. gentleman fully proves, in the compilation of his volume, that he can dip his pen in gall, as well as allow it to be guided by gold. Dr. Warton's History of English Poetry, a very beautiful and correct edition, greatly enlarged from most interesting materials at a very considerable expense, has just issued from the press in 3 vols. ”

“ MACLEAN NOT JUNIUS. (Vol. iii., p. 378.)
Your correspondent Ægrotus (antè, p. 378.) is not justified in writing so confidently on a subject respecting which he is so little informed. He is evidently not even aware that the claims of Maclean have been ably and elaborately set forth by Sir David Brewster, and, as I think, conclusively, on the evidence, set aside in the Athenæum. He has, however, been pleased to new vamp some old stories, to which he gives something of novelty by telling them "with a difference." ”

“ Even so late as the middle of the eighteenth century, when the great Lord Mansfield adorned {411}the bench, it was pleaded "that villenage, or slavery, had been permitted in England by the common law; that no statute had ever passed to abolish this status;" and that "although de facto villenage by birth had ceased, a man might still make himself a villein by acknowledgment in a court of record." This was in the celebrated case of the negro Somersett, in which Lord Mansfield first established that "the air of England had long been too pure for a slave." In his judgment he says,—
"... ”

“ Replies. VILLENAGE. (Vol. iii., p. 327.)
Your correspondent H. C. wishes to know whether bondage was a reality in the time of Philip and Mary; and, if so, when it became extinct. It was a reality much later than that, as several cases in the books will show. Dyer, who was appointed chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1559, settled several in which man claimed property in his fellow-man, hearing arguments and giving judgment on the point whether one should be a "villein regardant" or a "villein in gross." ”

“ It requires no argument to establish that the word "pensive" is suitable to the metre in both places in which the misprint occurred and it is equally clear that "prenzie" and "pensive" in manuscript are so similar, both in the number, form, and character of the letters, that the one might easily be printed for the other. ”

“ A Note on Dress.—Dress is mutable, who denies it? but still old fashions are retained to a far greater extent than one would at first imagine. The Thames watermen rejoice in the dress of Elizabeth: while the royal beefeaters (buffetiers) wear that of private soldiers of the time of Henry VII.; the blue-coat boy, the costume of a London citizen of the reign of Edward VI. ”

“ Another action was brought before him under these circumstances:—Butler, Lord of the Manor of Badminton, in the county of Gloucester, contending that Crouch was his villein regardant, entered into certain lands, which Crouch had purchased in Somersetshire, and leased them to Fleyer. Crouch thereupon disseised Fleyer, who brought his action against Crouch, pleading that Butler and his ancestors were seised of Crouch and his ancestors as of villeins regardant, from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. ”

“ Henry's Exposition of the Old and New Testaments first appeared collectively in 1710 [2] , five [3] vols. folio; but the recent edition of 1810 [4] , in six vols. 4to., is the best [5] , as the last volume contains [6] additional matter from the author's MSS. left at his decease.—Dr. Gill's Exposition of the New Testament was published in 1746, &c., three vols. folio; of the Old, in 1748 [7] , &c., nine [8] vols. folio; but the work advancing in reputation and price, became rare, so as to induce Mr. Bagster [9] to put forth a new edition of the whole, in ten [10] vols. ”

“ Arthur Hildersham, which containeth this following narrative: that at Brampton, in the parish of Torksey, near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, an ash-tree shaketh both in the body and boughs thereof, and there proceed from thence sighs and groans, like those of a man troubled in his sleep, as if it felt some sensible torment. Many have climbed to the top thereof, where they heard the groans more plainly than they could below. ”

“ In deciding upon a motion made in arrest of judgment, Holt, C.J., said,—"As soon as a negro comes into England he is free: one may be a villein in England, but not a slave." (Cases temp. Holt, 405.)
As to the period at which villenage in England became extinct, we find in Litt. (sec. 185.) :—
"Villenage is supposed to have finally disappeared in the reign of James I., but there is great difficulty in saying when it ceased to be lawful, for there has been no statute to abolish it ”

“ A common snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly drawn, by some one standing by, nine times across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for a while. ”

“ Then what ground is there for saying that the status of slavery is now recognised by the law of England?... At any rate, villenage has ceased in England, and it cannot be revived."—St. Tr., vol. xx. pp. 1-82.
And Macaulay, in his admirable History of England, speaking of the gradual and silent extinction of villenage, then, towards the close of the Tudor period, fast approaching completion, says:
"Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious as late as the days of the Stuarts ”

“ This manuscript is professedly a copy from a publication issued June 3rd, 1768, by Staples Steare, 93. Fleet Street, price three-pence. It is a letter addressed to Lord Mansfield, and an appeal in favour of Wilkes, on whom, the writer says, judgment is this day to be pronounced. It is written somewhat in the style of Junius. The satire is so refined that the reader does not at first suspect that it is satire,—as in Junius's Letters, wherein the satirical compliments to the King have been mistaken for praise, and quoted in proof of inconsistency. ”

“ E. H. A.
[The Almanach to which our correspondent refers is or was published by Gaume frères à Paris, and sold also by Grand, rue du Petit-Bourbon, 6, in the same city. Its price, judging from the size of the book, is about a couple of francs.]
Tick (Vol. iii., p. 357.) .—Mr. De la Pryme's suggestion as to the origin of the expression "going tick" is ingenious; nevertheless I take it to be clear that "tick" is merely an abbreviation of ticket. (See Nares's Glossary, and Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, under "Ticket.") ”

“ Mr. Collier, on the other hand, follows Steevens and Malone, and reads "princely," observing the Tieck's reading ("precise") "sounds ill as regards the metre, the accent falling on the wrong syllable. Mr. Collier's choice is determined by the authority of the second folio, which he considers ought to have considerable weight, whilst Mr. Knight regards the authority of that edition as very trifling; and the only point of agreement between the two distinguished recent editors is with respect to Warburton's word "priestly," which they both seem to think nearly conveys the meaning of the poet. ”

“ So learned a man as Spelman must, I think, have had some ground for this statement, and could scarcely be repeating a vulgar error taking its rise from a statute then hardly more than a hundred years old. ”

“ Johnson to mean "sorrowfully thoughtful, sorrowfully serious," or melancholy; and that such epithets are appropriate to the reputed character of Angelo will be seen from the following extracts:
"I implore her, in my service, that she make friends
To the strict deputy."—Claudio, Act I. Sc. 3.
"I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,
A man of stricture, and firm abstinence."—Duke, Act I. Sc. 4.
"Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone."—Duke, Act I. Sc. 4.
"A man, whose blood
Is very snow-broth ”

“ Replies Received.—Meaning of Crambe—Ex Pede Herculem—Cardinal Azolin—Charles Lamb's Epitaph—Poem on the Grave—Bunyan and the Visions of Hell—Colfabias—Coptic Language—Benedicite—Amicus Plato—Doctrine of the Resurrection—Registry of Dissenting Baptisms—The Bellman—Babington's Conspiracy—Epitaph—Quotations—Prayer of Mary Queen of Scots—Robertii Sphæria—Ob—Blake Family—To endeavour oneself—Cart before the Horse—Anonymous Ravennas—Family of Sir J. Banks—Mind your P's and Q's—Mazer Wood.
Notes and Queries may be procured, by order, of all Booksellers and Newsvenders. ”

“ As the inquiries of your correspondent W. M. S. (Vol. iii., p. 241.) as to the Wilkes MSS. and the writers of the North Briton have not yet been replied to, and this subject is one of great importance, will you allow me to recall attention to them?
F. S. A.
Minor Queries Answered.
"Many a Word."—Your correspondent's observations are perfectly correct: we daily use quotations we know not where to find. ”

“ It must be confessed that internal evidence is against it. The publication of Percy's Reliques had a no less beneficial influence on the literature of Germany than it had on our own; and Voss had given an admirable version of nine stanzas of this song as early as the year 1793. ”

“ James Buckman (Vol. iii., p. 320.) of "old wives' remedies," based on the above principle, would, I imagine, be of endless length; but the following extract from the Herbal of Sir John Hill, M.D., "Fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Bordeaux," published in 1789, will show at how late a period such notions have been entertained by men of education and even scientific attainment:—
"It is to be observed that nature seems to have set her stamp upon several herbs, which have the virtue to stop bleedings ”

“ R. West could not be." So be it. Still it is strange that the President, who was said to have told his anecdote expressly to show that Maclean was Junius, never thought to confirm it by the conclusive proof of having read the letters before they were published! Further,—and we leave the question of extreme accuracy and veraciousness to be settled by Ægrotus,—the President West was born in 1738 ”

“ St. Uncumber and the offering of Oats (Vol. ii., pp. 286. 342. 381.) .—A further illustration of this custom is found in the legend of St. Rhadegund, or at least in the metrical version of it, which is commonly ascribed to Henry Bradshaw. A copy of this very scarce poem, from the press of Pynson, is preserved in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge. ”

“ Ladies' Diary for 1825 and 1826.
*** Letters, stating particulars and lowest price, carriage free, to be sent to Mr. Bell, Publisher of "NOTES AND QUERIES," 186. Fleet Street.
Notices to Correspondents.
Quidam. Vernon's Anglo-Saxon Guide should be followed up by Thorpe's Analecta and Anglo-Saxon Gospels.
Silenus. If our correspondent will refer to our First Volume, pp. 177. 203. 210. 340., and our Second Volume, p. 3., he will find the history of the well-known couplet from the Musarum Deliciæ,
"For he that fights, and runs away,
May live to fight another day,"
fully illustrated. ”

“ A practical illustration that "union is strength," is shown by a volume which has just reached us, entitled, Reports and Papers read at the Meetings of the Architectural Societies of the Archdeaconry of Northampton, the Counties of York and Lincoln, and of the Architectural and Archæological Societies of Bedfordshire and St. ”