from the name of Jones being so common, had no difficulty to prove a descent by means of parochial registers: but had the parochial registers contained an identification (which is most simply to be done), none of those attempts which have failed for the Jones estates, or for the Angel estate, would have been brought into court; and much perjury, much wickedness, and great expense, would have been avoided: the Jones case was attended with ruin to a great many poor families, who, believing in the representation of the claimant, mortgaged and sold their property, and handed it over to the claimant to go to the Shrewsbury assizes to prove his case; and I know it was a mistaken case (not to use a stronger term); they brought the papers into my office, and it was evident they were under an erroneous impression." - Report on Parochial Registration, p. 114.

[Confused History of the Wars between the

Anglo-Saxons and the Danes.]

"As soon as the Saxons had ended their travails with the Brittains, and drew to settling of a monarchy, the Danes, as if ordained to revenge their slaughters, began to assault them with the like afflictions. The long, the many, and horrible encounters between these two fierce nations, with the bloodshed and infinite spoils committed in every part of the land, are of so disordered and troublous memory, that what with their asperous names, together with the confusion of places, times, and persons, intricately delivered, is yet a war to the reader to overlook them."-DANIEL, p. 12.

ww

"Pro Cooperturis Librorum Regis.

"Eidem Domino Regi, in Cameram suam, ad cooperturas diversorum librorum Domini nostri Regis, et cum bagges cooperiend. in pann. velvet. adaurat. seric. plan. et motle, pann. baldek adaurat. et linand. cum satyn, diversor. color. de mandato Domini Regis.

1 pec. 6 uln. velvet. plan.

1 uln. velvet motle.

2 pec. 3 uln. velvet adaurat.
1 pann. 24 uln. baldek. adaurat.
9 pec. 4 uln. satyn."

RYMER, Vol. 9, p. 335.

[Royal Physicians and Surgeons in the Fifteenth Century.]

1454.

De ministrando medicinas circa personam Regis.

"Rex, dilectis sibi, Magistris, Johanni Arundell, Johanni Faceby, et Willielmo Hatclyff, Medicis, Magistro Roberto Wareyn, et Johanni Marchall, Chirurgicis, salutem.

"Sciatis quòd,

"Imprimis (videlicet) quòd licitè valeatis moderare Nobis dietam juxta discretiones vestras, et casûs exigentiam ;

"Et quòd, in regimine medicinalium, liberè Nobis possitis ministrare Electuaria, Potiones, Aquas, Sirupos, confectiones, Laxativas Medicinas in quâcumque formâ Nobis gratiore, et ut videbitur plus expedire, Clisturia Suppositoria, Caput purgia Gargarismata, Balnea, vel universalia vel particularia, Epithimata, Fomentationes, Embrocationes, Capitis rasuram, Unctiones, Emplastra, Cerota, Ventosas cum scarificatione vel sine, Emeroidarum provocationes, modis quibus meliùs ingetuare poteritis, et juxta consilia peritorum Medicorum, qui in hoc casu scripserunt, vel imposterùm scribent;

"Et ideò vobis, et cuilibet vestrum mandamus quòd circa præmissa diligenter intendatis, et ea faciatis et exequamini in formâ prædictâ:

"Damus autem universis et singulis fidelibus et ligeis nostris, quorum interest, in hac parte, firmiter in mandatis, quòd vobis, in executione præmissorum, pareant et intendant, ut est justum.

which no grammarian, whether Greek or Latin, had yet accurately done."— Praise of Folly, p. 92.

66

IF any chance to have placed that as a conjunction which ought to have been used as an adverb, it is a sufficient alarm to raise a war for the doing justice to the injured word. And since there have been as many several grammars as particular grammarians (nay more, for Aldus alone wrote five distinct grammars for his own share), the schoolmaster must be obliged to consult them all, sparing for no time nor trouble, though never so great, lest he should be otherwise posed on any unobserved criticism, and so by an irreparable disgrace lose the reward of all his toil." ERASMUS, Praise of Folly, p. 92.

MORIA, in ERASMUS's Praise of Folly, calls the Grammarians "a sort of men who would be the most miserable, the most slavish, and the most hateful of all persons, if she did not some way alleviate the pressures and miseries of their profession, by blessing them with a bewitching kind of madness. For they are not only liable to those five curses which they so oft recite from the first five verses of Homer, but to five hundred more of a worse nature; as always damned to thirst and hunger, to be choaked with dust in their unswept schools (schools shall I term them, or rather elaboratories, nay Bridewells and Houses of Correction ?), to wear out themselves in fret and drudgery, to be deafened with the noise of gaping boys, and, in short, to be stifled with heat and stench and yet they cheerfully dispense with all these inconveniences, and by the help of a fond conceit, think themselves as happy as any then living; taking a great pride and delight in

S

258

frowning and looking big upon the trembling urchins, in boxing, slashing, striking with the ferule, and in the exercise of all their other methods of tyranny. Elevated with this conceit, they can hold filth and nastiness to be an ornament, can reconcile their nose to the most intolerable smells, and finally think their wretched slavery the most arbitrary kingdom,"-P. 90.

[Archery in Henry the Fifth's time—its

great importance.]

WHEN Henry V. was preparing to lead an army into France in 1417, he ordered the Lord-Lieutenants (Vicecomites) of Wilts, Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex, Lincoln, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Essex, Hertford, Southampton, Bedford, Bucks, Oxford, Berks, Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Dorset, Northampton, and Rutlandshire, to collect and send him six feathers from the wings of every goose in their respective counties, except of such geese as were commonly called brodoges. The order bears the strongest testimony to the good service which the archers had performed. It says:

"Nos considerantes qualiter, inter gratiarum donationes, nobis à Deo, dum in partibus illis ex hac causâ eramus, variè collatas, idem Deus nobis, non nostris meritis, sed suâ ineffabili bonitate, inter cæteras, per sagittarios nostros suis sagittis, gratiam atque victoriam inimicorum nostrorum multipliciter impedit,

"Ac proinde de sufficienti stuffuzâ hujusmodi sagittarum, cum eâ celeritate quâ commodè fieri poterit, et pro meliori expeditione præsentis viagii nostri, provideri volentes,

"Tibi præcipimus, firmiter injungentes, quòd statim, visis præsentibus, per Ballivos tuos ac alios, quos ad hoc nomine tuo dux eris ordinandos et deputandos in singulis villis et aliis locis Comitatûs tui, de quacumque aucâ (præter aucas Brodoges vulgariter nuncupatas) sex pennas alarum

suarum, pro sagittis ad opus nostrum de novo faciendis, magis congruas et competentes, pro denariis nostris, de exitibus Comitatûs tui prædicti provenientibus, in hac parte rationabiliter solvendis, cum omni festinatione possibili capi et provideri, ac pennas illas usque Londoniam, citra quartumdecimum diem Martii proximò futurum, duci et cariari facias."-RYMER, vol. 9, p. 436.

In the following year, 40,000 feathers are required from Southampton, 30,000 from Surrey and Sussex, 100,000 from Somerset and Dorset, 40,000 from Wilts, 40,000 from Gloucester, 30,000 from Worcester, 60,000 from Warwick and Leicester, 60,000 from Oxford and Berks, 60,000 from Northumberland, 30,000 from Rutland, 30,000 from Stafford, 30,000 from Notts and Derby, 60,000 from York, 100,000 from Lincoln, 100,000 from Norfolk and Suffolk, 100,000 from Essex and Herts, 80,000 from Bedford and Bucks, 100,000 from Kent, 100,000 from Cambridge and Huntingdon.-Ibid. p. 653.

which are dedicated to their gods; viz. the skulls in memory of their fights and conquests; the pulse by way of thanksoffering for their provisions; and the herbs. on the same account, for some special cure performed by them. For when any one is cured by any herb, he brings part of it, and offers it to his god; by which the remembrance of this herb and its virtue are not only preserved, but the priest also thus becomes best instructed and skilled in the art of medicine. For otherwise, they are reserved of their knowledge, even among themselves. Often when they are abroad hunting in the woods, and fall sick, or receive any hurt, they are then forced to make use of any herbs nearest at hand, which they are not timorous in venturing on, though they know not their virtue or qualities. And thus, by making many trials and experiments, they find out the virtues of herbs; and by using simple remedies, they certainly know what it is that effects the cure. · Abridged from Philosophical Transactions, vol. 8, p. 329.

[What is true Wisdom.]

"SED quæ sit cultura animi fortasse requiris.

Est sophia, est inquam sophia; hanc, intellige, mores

66

Rectè monstrat iter mortalibus, ut pietatem Justitiamque colant suadens, et crimina vitent.

Sola hæc nimirum sophia et sapientia vera

est:

Non ea cui passim medici vafrique cuculli Temporibus nostris incumbunt nocte dieque,

Quærentes rerum abstrusas evolvere causas, Naturæque intus latitantis pandere claustra,

I cannot believe they would have so much advantage over our souls as they have, if our souls were released from flesh and blood. Satan has a chamber in the imagination; fancy is his shop wherein to forge sinful thoughts; and he is very busy at this mischievous work, especially when the powers of nature labour under any disease, and such as affects the head and the nerves. He seizes the unhappy opportunity, and gives greater disturbances to the mind by combining the images of the brain

chimæras

Inflatis buccis ructantes, ut videantur

and urging onwards the too unruly passions. The crafty adversary is ever ready

to fish, as we say, in troubled waters, where the humours of the body are out of order." -Vol. 1, p. 49. (Leeds edition.)

and that they were regularly educated in them, that there might be a better provision made for their support. What if all the garments which are worn by women, were so limited and restrained in the ma

Spanish Wines.]

"THOUGH I am not old in comparison of other ancient men," says SIR RICHARD HAWKINS, "I can remember Spanish wine rarely to be found in this kingdom. Then hot burning fevers were not known in England, and men lived many more years. But since the Spanish sacks have been common in our taverns, which (for conservation) is mingled with lime in its making, our nation complaineth of calenturas, of the stone, the dropsy, and infinite other diseases, not heard of before this wine came in frequent use, or but very seldom. To confirm which my belief, I have heard one of our learnedest physicians affirm, that he thought there died more persons in England of drinking wine, and using hot spices in their meats

and drinks, than of all other diseases.

Be

sides there is no year in which it wasteth not two millions of crowns of our substance by conveyance into foreign countries; which, in so well a governed commonwealth as ours is acknowledged to be through the whole world, in all other constitutions, in this only remaineth to be looked into and remedied.

Doubtless, whosoever should be the

author of this reformation, would gain with God an everlasting reward, and of his country a statue of gold, for a perpetual memory of so meritorious a work."- Observations, p. 103.

[More Employments for Women much
needed.]

"I MUST Confess, when I have seen so many of this sex who have lived well in the time of their childhood, grievously exposed to many hardships and poverty upon the death of their parents, I have often wished there were more of the callings or employments of life appropriated to women,

made only by their own sex? This would go a great way towards relief in this case. And what if some of the easier labours of life were reserved for them only?"-Watts, vol. 7, p. 362.

[Multiplication of Books.]

"What a company of poets hath this year brought out, as Pliny complains to Sossius Sinesius; This April every day some or other have recited. What a catalogue of new books all this year, all this age (I say) have brought out! Twice a year, Proferunt se our Franc-furt marts, our domestic marts,

nova ingenia et ostentant, we stretch our wits

out, and set them to sale, magno conatu nihil agimus. So that which Gesner much deby some Princes' edicts and grave supersires, if a speedy reformation be not had, visors to restrain this liberty, it will run on in infinitum, Quis tam avidus librorum helluo, Who can read them ? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with choly, p. 7-8. turning."- BURTON's Anatomy of Melan