458
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JUNK 5, im
adventurous exponent is the fact that among
Prof. Skeat's valuable references there is
nothing to guide one towards the engaging
fancy with which Collins in ' The Manners '
thus signalizes Le Sage :
Or him whom Seine's blue nymphs deplore, In watchet weeds on Gallia's shore.
Such an exquisite touch should never be overlooked when the structure and use of this word are under discussion,
THOMAS BAYNE.
The colour-term " watchet " occurs in a memorandum (see 10 S. ix. 226) concerning the waistcoat used by King Charles I. at his execution. WILLIAM JAGGARD.
HAKE FORECASTING FIRE (10 S. xi. 310, 413). In April, 1908, one of the masters' houses at Harrow was burnt down. A hare was said to have run through the town that morning ; and there was a similar tradition about a similar fire there in the thirties.
HERGENSIS.
SIR THOMAS WARNER'S TOMBSTONE (10 S. viii. 288, 377 ; ix. 296 ; xi. 392). A photo- graph of this appeared in The Stone Trades Journal for May, 1908, and the epitaph is very well reproduced. The fragment of the last line is certainly "... .fine Coronat."
L. L. K.
AN ENGLISH QUEEN AS JEZEBEL (10 S. xi. 341). Agnes Strickland in her ' Lives of the Queens of England,' speaking of Mary II.'s death, says :
" A Jacobite clergyman had the audacity to take for his text the verse, ' Go, see now this cursed woman,' &c. The same insult had been offered to Mary, Queen of Scots, the ancestress of Mary II., by a Puritan so nearly do extremes in politics meet."
A. B. BAYLEY.
BRIEFS FOR GREEK CHRISTIANS (10 S. xi.
289, 357). Chariton Syllabaris, Archbishop
of Dyrrachium, was buried on 1 July, 1633
not 1663, as printed at the latter reference.
A. B. MALDEN.
The Close, Salisbury.
'THE DIABOLIAD,' BY WILLIAM COMBE (10 S. ix. 227). There is an error in my key to this satire. On p. 20, 1. 2, the initial - indicates not G. B. Fitzgerald, but Col. Richard Fitzpatrick, the son of the first Earl of L T pper Ossory and the friend of Charles Fox. My edition of the verses is one printed at Dublin in 1777.
HORACE BLEACKLEY.
JEWS AND JEWESSES IN FICTION (10 S. xi.
169, 254, 316, 394). To the list already
given may be added the characters of the
beneficent Sheva and of Jubal his attendant
in Bichard Cumberland's play of ' The
Jew.' N. W. HILL.
New York.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &a
Archceologia JEliana ; or, Miscellaneous Tracts
relating to Antiquity. Third Series, Vol. IV.
(Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-
Tyne.)
MR. F. BBADSHAW contributes a paper which must have been the result of long-continued research as to the ' Decline and Fall of Serfdom in Durham.' To analyze it would be a long and uninviting process, for, so far as we are able to test it, by far the greater part of the conclusions arrived at are based on documentary evidence which it is impossible to call in question. Mediaeval lawyers, unduly influenced as they are known to have been by the Roman law, and little as they seem to have taken account of the customs of pre-Norman times, were yet compelled to make wide distinctions when they had to do with villainage. They knew that it was impossible for them to treat the villein en gros, who was little better than a slave, on the same terms as the villein regardant, who was the holder of land occupied by villein tenure, but was personally to a great extent, and often entirely, free. As time went on the latter class increased rapidly. The sale of manumission charters was frequent, and we have no doubt that many in the latter days ceased to be regarded as serfs by common consent, without any documentary evidence to demon- strate their freedom. The child of a free mother by a slave father was generally free, but in Durham " its condition was determined by that of its father," and fines were claimed when a female serf married. Mr. Bradshaw says that an obscure passage occurs in the Prior's Rolls of Durham which seems to mean that until the merchet or marriage fine was paid the marriage was invalid. Unhappily, the words are not given. We, how- ever, hold a strong opinion that, whatever local customs may have been in Durham or elsewhere, if the Church's rules with regard to wedlock were complied with, no manorial law could override them.
Dr. T. Allison furnishes an interesting paper on ' The Flail and Kindred Tools,' which forms a continuation of an article that appeared in the previous volume. It is somewhat discursive, but many will think it the more valuable on that account. The horse thrashing-machine which came into use early in the nineteenth century abolished the flail only gradually, and to the last very imperfectly. The large farmers soon availed themselves of the new invention, but their smaller neighbours, who could not afford to buy one, went on in the same manner as their forefathers. In by far the greater part of England the flail was in constant use as late as 1850, and every one who dwelt in the country was accustomed to the sound thereof. In or about that vear there was
