Council to Sir Henry Bedingfeld, as Lieutenant of the Tower of London. The directions in these letters about the prisoners in the Tower are very curious, particularly about their tortures or paining.' Among the ancient deeds is a license from Edward IV., in the twenty-second year of his reign, to crenellate Oxburgh, and to have a market every Friday and a court there.6

The greatest treasure of the collection of the Rev. Sir William Cope, Bart., (of Bramshill House, Hants,) is a magnificent Evangelarium of the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century. It is nearly as fine as that possessed by Colonel Carew, noticed in the Second Report. Sir William Cope's example came from Waverley Abbey, and has these verses in it:

Waverlea, liber tuus est hic, crimine liber Non erit ante Deum qui tibi tollit eum.

Another volume in the same collection has a long religious poem on the life and passion of our Lord, written c. 1500.

Sir W. Ffolkes has the town book of Lynn from 9 Henry VI. to 29 of same monarch. It contains a great deal of interesting matter relating to that place. His collection also contains four portfolios of letters to Sir Martin Folkes, President of the Royal Society, chiefly of the first half of the eighteenth century, and five folios of papers on scientific and literary subjects by the same.

The muniment room at StowBardolph Hall, the seat of Sir Thos. Hare, Bart., is rich in early deeds. The earliest is a charter under the

seal of the Conqueror, stating that he has received into his hands and defense all the honour of the church of Ramsey, and confirms grants by former Kings. The King signs with a mark of a cross, and amongst the witnesses are Archbishop Lanfranc, Odo bishop of Bayeux, and the Bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, and Worcester. Mr. Horwood thinks the double date, 4 Kalends of January, 1077, in the tenth year of his reign, is rather suspicious. Most lovers of early seals, those interesting examples of Gothic art, doubtless are familiar with the two volumes of capital engravings of seals published about twenty-five years ago, which the muniment room at Stow-Bardolph yielded.

Sir John Lawson, Bart. (of Brough Hall, York) has a life of St. Cuthbert, c. 1200, with forty full-page illuminations, and also the oldest known manuscript of the York Manual. He possesses also original letters by the Young Pretender and the Earl of Perth, in 1745

At Congleton Court, near Redditch, Warwick, are preserved an immense number of ancient deeds relating to the family of Throck morton and its branches, beginning temp. Henry III. One cannot help wishing that one coffer could be opened, but all efforts have hitherto been unsuccessful. It is of old oak bound with bars of polished steel, and over a large part of the front is a steel plate, so that the key hole is invisible, a spring probably secures the plate. Of the eighteenth cen tury letters in this collection we

make an extract from one. It is dated December 27, 1734, but bears no signature or address. 'I don't pity Handell in the least, for I hope this mortification will make him a human creature; for I am sure before he was no better than a brute, when he could treat civilised people with so much brutality as I know he has done.'

The greater portion of the manuscripts of the Rev. F. Hopkinson, of Malvern Wells,consists of Exchequer Documents dispersed some years ago, and therefore of great interest. A vellum roll contains the number of officers on the household of Cardinal Wolsey. In the chapel were a Dean Divine, a Sub-dean, Clerk of the Closet, Repeater of the 'Quier,' a Gospeller, a 'Pistler,' ten singing Priests, twelve singing men, a master of the children, ten children, a servant to wait on them, one yeoman, two grooms, four 'retayners' in the vestry, two cup bearers, two pillar bearers, or fiftyone in all. Lists of other servants of the household made the total up

to 422.

One of the most interesting documents in this series is a report of a French envoy in England, on the proposed match between Queen Elizabeth and Charles IX. of France. We transcribe Mr. Horwood's notes on this paper. The writer states that the Queen had several times shown, in her discourses with the Ambassador, her wish to ally with the King, and had said that their ages corresponded better than did those of the King of Spain and the late Queen Mary, who was fortytwo years old when she married. Refers to the letters written by the Ambassadors about her remarks, when Lord Hunsdon returned from France, and about the Queen wearing a portrait of the King next her heart, and saying that it was engraved there. Says that the Ambassador, knowing the fickleness of men, particularly the English, and

VOL. VIII.-NO. XLVIII. NEW SERIES.

still more of women, and considering the favour which the Queen showed to Lord Robert, would not rely on those demonstrations, but simply related the conversations. He thinks that with a view to get at the Queen's real intentions it will be well if, on the occasion of sending over the Order of St. Michael to the Earl of Leicester, the King will send some prudent and confidential person. Suggests that he should be a servant of the Queen and one of the Reformed Church, who can make overtures, as it were, of his own accord, being instigated by zeal for the increase of religion. To assure the Crown in all events the Queen of Scots may be married to Monsieur, and be declared successor, so that if the Queen of England should die, the King would have England in hand, and could easily keep it for his brother.

...

;

He shows how much better off the King and Kingdom of France will be by such a marriage than was the King of Spain. The Queen can marry whom she likes the nobility cannot oppose, they having been reduced by executions in the times of Henry and Mary. The nobility are poor and the Queen is penurious, and they desire a great. King who can benefit them. Some think that she will marry the Earl of Leicester, but it is to be recollected that she has remained long unmarried, that she has proposed him to the Queen of Scots, that she has often said to the Ambassador that she had a heart too great to descend so low; and the servants of Leicester have told the Ambassador that he was out of hope; and even Sidney, his brother-in-law, has offered to wager his head that she would only marry a foreign Prince. It is possible that the Earl and his faction may favour the match, hoping to get a good marriage for him in France. Insists on the importance of now ascertaining what the Queen really means.

3 E

Mr. Le Strange, of Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk, has some very curious household books of the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.7 In 1611 claret was 28. per gallon, sugar, 18d. and 19d. per lb.; green satin damask 128. per yard in 1631; gunpowder, in 1643, 18. 5d. per lb.

A letter to Sir Robert Phelips, among the manuscripts at Montacute House, Somerset (which it will be remembered yielded the important Gunpowder Plot papers), Aug. 2, 1634, states:

Her Majestie to grace hir servant sent a present by him to hir sister the Queene of France, which was six rich handles for fanns, being (as I heare) the I of agot 2nd sapphire, 3 rubie, 4 sett with little diamonds, 5th of gold inamelled and the 6th of pure gold. The French have been so wise as, by a late sumptuarie edict and declaration of that King's, published in the parliapublished in the parliament at Rouen, and translated and printed in English, to take care of regulating the extravagant cost of apparell, and of reforming the excesse thereof in imbroideries and other wayes, so that they leave not there old wont of lightly crossing the narrowe, we are likely to have French embroideries enowe in England, and to have those vanities cheape. They have likewise decried our English gold, whereof there hath bin of late yeares more plentie in France then in England, by reason of the great and gainfull transportation thereof, in regard the Jacobus had then a permissive

currencie at 28s. and the Carolus at 268., so that halfe of most payments are said to have bin made there in our gold; the cause of the decrying whereof was the great quantitie of false coyne which was either counterfeyted there or sent over from here, in respect it passed without weight, and 2nd because that state would buy the good gold to there mynts and be there coyned into French crowns.

Mr. Sneyd (of Keele Hall, Stafford) was fortunate enough, some years ago, to purchase in Italy a

portion of the celebrated Canonici collection of manuscripts. Besides this, he has some old English treatises of considerable interest, and many holograph letters of Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, James I., Charles I. and his Queen, Charles II., James II., &e. There is an order under the King's hand (Henry VII. 1498) to Robert Litton, Kt., Keeper of the Wardrobe, to deliver to the King's barber, Henry Delawere, for his use,

8

a jerkyn of tawney medley, furred with whyte lambe, a doblet of greene sattyn, and an other of fustyen, with sufficient lynyng for the same doblett, 2 pair of hosyn, one of crymsyn, and the other of tawney, 2 shyrts, a bonyt, an hatte, 4 dosyn of poynt, 2 pair of shone, a pair of pynsors, and a paire of slyppers, and that ye pay for the makyng the said arraye.'

Among the interesting letters of celebrated men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Mr. Warburton's collection at Arley Hall, Chester, an extract is given

from a letter from Thomas Hobbes to Mr. E. Howard, 1688: 'My judgement in poetry hath you know been once already censured by very good wits, for commending Gondi bert. But yet they have not, I think, disabled my testimony. For what authority is there in wit ? A jester may have it; be fluent over night, and be wise and dry in the morning.' Here is a letter from Cowper to the Rev. John Newton, dated March 19, 1784:-'I converse, you say, upon other subjects than that of despair, and may so write upon others. Indeed, my friend, I am a man of very little

conversation upon any subject. From that of despair I abstain as much as possible, for the sake of my company; but I will venture to say that it is never out of my mind one minute in the whole day. I have lately purchased 8 volumes of Johnson's Prefaces on Lives of the Poets. In all that number I observe but one man, a poet of no great fame, of whom I did not know that he existed till I found him there, whose mind seems to have had the slightest tincture of religion, and he was hardly in his senses. His name was Collins. He sank into a state of melancholy, and died young. But

from the lives of all the rest there is but one inference to be drawn, that poets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.' Mr. Warburton's collection contains also many charters from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, relating to the possessions of his ancestors.

A Latin Chronicle in the possession of the Corporation of Axbridge, Somerset, states that the Church of St. Paul, London, was burnt in 1147 by a fire which extended as far as London Bridge on the one side, and on the other to the Church of St. Clement Danes, without the Bar of the New Temple. In 1150 the ice was strong enough to bear horsemen on the Thames, and in 1202 a storm of rain and thunder came with hail stones the size of eggs. Wonderful to relate, birds were seen flying in the air with flaming coals in their beaks, setting fire to 15 houses. Mr. H. T. Riley, in his report on the records of

this Corporation, says that it seems to have been the general custom with the inhabitants of Axbridge during the Middle Ages, when they effected a conveyance of rent of property, to leave a counterpart of the indenture in the hands of the town clerk for safe custody. It is only in this way that the presence of nearly a thousand deeds relating to the transfer of property among the town records can be accounted for. The town books are full of curious entries. Robert Joye, in October 1664, 'did att two several tymes prophanely sweare,' but was not punished because he agreed to pay 2d. for the use of the poor of Axbridge. Under October 6, 1676, we read: 'A fyne of 40s. ymposed on Robert Clarke, Bayliffe of the burrough aforesaid, for not executing of his office, for not whippinge of Hester Hannam, of Dundrey, spinster, according to the statute in that case made and provided.' Mr. Riley has made a second examination of the papers belonging to the Corporation of Bridgwater. It is somewhat remarkable that among these nearly 100 documents should have been found relating to the University and town of Oxford, from Edward I. to Henry VII.

Mr. Riley suggests that a former steward, or town clerk, of Bridgwater may have held office there, and have practised as an attorney in Oxford. This is confirmed by the fact, that several of the Bridgwater drafts appear to have been written by the same hand.

THERE

HERE can be no doubt but that there is such a phenomenon as Luck; and that it sets heavily against some unlucky men. I say phenomenon: because there is no such thing as Luck. But it looks as though there were: many events fall out as though there were. There is such an appearance as a run of luck, good or bad, in the lot of certain human beings.

If you find that a man, wherever he is placed, quarrels with everybody with whom he is placed in near relation, this assuredly looks ill. It appears as though it must be mainly through his own fault. Even should he be able to make out, in the case of each quarrel, that he met provocation, you cannot help thinking that there is something amiss in the constitution of one who somehow manages to elicit the worst that is in the nature of everybody he meets-the most unreasonable, wrong-headed, unfair, insolent part. Yet in this you may be forming an unjust judgment. It is conceivable that the man who has quarrelled with everybody everywhere from youth to age, may have done so because he has been inexpressibly unhappy in the people with whom he has been obliged to live and deal. The unlikeliest things have happened: happened many times: and it is extremely likely that a great many extremely unlikely things will happen in time coming. Hasty and inexperienced folk, instantly at hearing from a fellow-creature that he lately served on a jury with eleven others, all hopelessly stupid and unreasonable, rush to a conclusion which may be conceived without being expressed. Yet the case may have happened. A few weeks ago I believe it did happen. The writer's profession excuses him from ever serving on a jury: he speaks from no personal feeling. But a man of

high intelligence and of lawyer-like acquaintance with the law of evidence lately informed him of the discussion which occurred in the jury room when the jury had retired: and assuredly for utter stupidity, and incapacity to discern what facts were relevant to the issue and what had nothing earthly to do with it, the eleven other jurymen could not be spoken of too warmly. Let it be here said, parenthetically, that only the deep tendency in human nature to reverence, trust in, and be guided by the Unknown, can explain the respect paid to the verdict of a jury. If the human race knew the reasons and considerations which decided it in many cases, trial by jury would be forthwith abolished. Where the verdict is right, the reasons are commonly wrong. And it is only because the decision is announced simpliciter, that sane people defer to it.

It

Now, as the one reasonable man may through special ill-luck find himselfset to serve with eleven unreasonable jurymen, even so the man who quarrels wherever he goes may not be a quarrelsome man, but a man whom evil fortune has appointed to fall in everywhere with quarrelsome people. Or, he may be lacking in nothing more than that tact and forbearance which shall at a critical moment gently put provocation aside. may have been, that one such moment has been in a man's career like the facing points on a railway: has turned him aside into a wrong line from which there was no return. One conspicuous error may have got the dog an ill-name which evermore stuck to him: may have condemned him to go on always in that dismal lane of wrong-doing wherein is no turning. The great thing which keeps many men right under provocation is their knowing that it is expected of them that they will keep