during his residence here with the exiled Count d'Artois, and still more so during the six years he represented the Bourbon government at the Court of St. James's. He married an English lady, Anne, daughter of the first Lord Rancliffe, and widow of the Marquis de Choiseul. ED.

66

etymology which has been suggested, bear out this meaning. Furlong is said by Spelman to be= furrow-long, a derivation which the writer of the article on Weights and Measures in the English Cyclopædia dismisses, without examination, as carrying absurdity on the face of it; but it deserves further consideration. In ploughing our

P.S.-Since writing the above we have gone through the verbatim report of the trial of the mini-modern enclosed fields the length of the furrow sters of Charles X. (December, 1830) in search of any indications on the part of witnesses or of Prince de Polignac's defender, M. de Martignac, that would seem to bear upon the story of the vision. The Marquis de Sémonville, who was in frequent intercourse with the members of the cabinet, deposed that their acts appeared to be in opposition to their opinions, and that "they had the air of men who were under an influence and power which dominated their will." M. de Martignac (who read his defence of the prince) referred to the sincere piety of his client, which led him to disregard the most serious difficulties. Not," he said, "that M. de Polignac felt that he possessed power within himself to surmount such difficulties, but that when a course was felt by him to be a duty, he had entire confidence in the sentiment by which it was suggested. He thus advanced towards his object with assurance of success, closely shutting his eyes to all obstacles." The above passages serve to corroborate the anecdote of the dream of the vision of the Virgin, and of the command she gave to the French prime minister to complete his work. On Monday last, in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Léon Renault, in his very remarkable speech, distinctly referred to the religious (or superstitious) enthusiasm of the French premier, whose acts overthrew the ancient dynasty of the Bourbons, in these words, "Polignac had the excuse of a distinct object and real religious faith, but this cabinet [of Marshal Macmahon] has neither faith, principles, nor pretext."

is naturally from fence to fence. When land was unenclosed, convenience would dictate some limit. The Glossarium Manuale mediæ et infimæ Latinitatis, abridged from Du Fresne, Du Cange, and Carpenter, describes Furlongus (giving the above derivation from Spelman) as "id quod uno progressu aratrum describit antequam regrediatur, et continet plerumque 40 perticas, hoc est octavam partem milliaris Anglici." Furloncus, furlongia, and forlongia are defined as, "Ager, campus, continens complures acras, quæ, seriatim adjacentes, pariter incipiunt et pariter desinunt, sulcique longitudine concluduntur," and several illustrative quotations are given, e.g. one from the Monasticon, specifying "viginti acras in uno campo, ex quibus quinque acræ sunt in furlungia quæ descendit in rivolum ultra spinam, et quinque in furlungia ultra vallem." Our ancestors' primitive notions of land measurement are very remarkable. Leaving out of consideration the variable length of the perch, as foreign to the purpose of the present note, the idea of a rood of land was that of a plot measuring in width one perch, and in length a furrow of forty perches, as above; and four such roods, lying side by side, constituted an acre. To constitute an acre of any other form required an Act of Parliament; and the statute 33 Edw. I. st. 6, enacted that when an acre of land contained ten perches in length, it should contain sixteen in width; when eleven in length, then fourteen and a half perches and ore foot; and so on-containing thirty-six separate length any number of perches from ten to fortyenactments to provide for the acre measuring in

five. It was not until 24 Henry VIII. c. 4, that the legislature arrived at the simplicity of enacting that an acre should be counted 160 perches, and every perch sixteen foot and a half.

It seems clear that the furlong, as a measure of space, was a greater area than an acre. A square, measuring a furlong, or furrow's length, or oneeighth of a mile, each way, would contain ten acres, and I submit that this is the quantity denoted in the passage from The Tempest. The above considerations show how the furlong came to be treated as a unit of length and not a mere fractional part of a mile, whether its derivation be as above, or from "forty-long," in allusion to its forty perches. But independent of any argument connected with the length of the plough furrow, and recognizing the furlong as a definite measure of length, we may reasonably conclude that when it is applied to the measurement of space the

square furlong is intended, just as a yard of land means a square yard, and as the word "perch" is used in the above statute of Hen. VIII. in two senses, first as a square and second as a lineal perch. By furlungia, in the more extended sense in which it is used in the passage from the Monasticon, I understand a plot of land marked out for purposes of cultivation, of forty perches in length and of indefinite width, so as to contain any number of acres, and facilitate calculation of area by counting the number of furrows.

We are, so far, not much nearer to an explanation of acre as a measure of length. The Glossarium Manuale, already quoted, distinguishes acer, or ager, from acra, and quotes from Isid. Orig., "Ager habet passus 125 vel pedes 625"; but I find no other authority for the use of ager in | Latin, or of acre in English, for a measure of length. If, however, it be once established that the furlong was used as a measure both of space and of length, and that in the former sense the acre was a tenth or any other aliquot part of it, the use of acre in a similar relation to furlong, when used in the latter sense, does not seem a violent abuse of language. This, taking the perch as five and a half yards, would make the lineal acre equal to the modern chain of twenty-two yards, if treated as one-tenth part of a lineal furlong, or about seventy yards if treated as the length of the side of a square having an area equal to one-tenth of a square furlong. JOHN FITCHETT MARSH.

Hardwick House, Chepstow.

THE WOOING OF KING AUTHARI.

Paul Warnefrid, in his book De Gestis Langobardorum (bk. iii. c. 31), gives an account of the wooing of King Authari, resembling in so singular a manner the incognito visit of our Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham to the Infanta of Spain, that it may be worth a note.

The

give him personal assurance of her portraiture."
When the king heard this he sent for his daughter,
and Authari, having regarded her for a while with
silent approbation, and being well pleased with
her whole appearance, said to the king: "Because
we see in your daughter such a one as we would
deem worthy to be our queen, we would ask, if it
please your majesty ('si placet vestræ potestati '),
that we may receive a cup of wine at her hands
as she will hereafter vouchsafe it to us."
king having acceded to this request, she took a
cup of wine, and drank first to the apparent chief
of the mission. Then handing the cup to Authari,
of whose relation to herself she had no knowledge,
he drank, and, returning the cup to her, he privily
touched her hand with his finger, unseen by any
one, and at the same time passed his other hand
down from his forehead over his nose and face.
Covered with blushes, she told this proceeding to
her nurse, who assured her that, unless it had been
the king himself her betrothed, he would not have
dared to touch her. In the mean time she must
keep silence, lest it should come to the knowledge
of her father; and she ought to be well satisfied
with the spouse appointed for her, who indeed
showed a presence worthy of his royal station and
of her bed. For Authari was then in the flower
of his youth, of noble stature and handsome coun-
tenance, with flowing locks of bright hair.

Having taken leave of the king the envoys hastened their departure, and sped their way through the country of the Norici, the province which the Bavarians then inhabited. When Authari had come to the frontier of Italy, having still with him the Bavarians who were convoying him so far, he rose up in his stirrups, and hurling the small battleaxe which he carried in his hand, he drove it into the stem of the nearest tree, and, leaving it sticking there, he cried, "Such are the strokes given by the arm of Authari!" Then the Bavarians understood that it was the King Authari himself.

H. WEDGWOOD.

FORENAME AND SURNAME BOOKS.
(Continued from p. 444.)

illustrative and explanatory. By Edward Duke. In two in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., with notes, volumes. Vol. I. [no more published]. Salisbury, printed for the author [by] W. B. Brodie & Co. London, Nichols & Son, 1837.-8vo. pp. xxxvi-622, folding plate. Pp. 1-15, Origin of names.

Authari, who reigned over the Lombards from 584 to 594, having been disappointed in his suit for the sister of King Childebert of France, was more successful with Garibald, King of the Bavarians, who betrothed to him his daughter Theudelinda. When his envoys announced to the Prolusiones historica; or, essays illustrative of the young king the success of their mission, he deter-halle of John Halle, citizen and merchant of Salisbury, mined to see for himself his future spouse, and, taking a few attendants, together with one intimate confidant to act as the chief of the expedition, he set out at once for Bavaria. When the envoys had been introduced to the presence of King Garibald, and their apparent chief had made the customary compliments, Authari, who was quite unknown to any of the Bavarians, stepped forward, and, addressing himself to Garibald, said: lord, King Authari, has specially deputed me to see our future lady, the daughter whom you have betrothed to him, in order that I may be able to

66

Our

Glossarium der Friesischen sprache [&c.], zusammengetragen von Nicolaus] Outzen. Herausgegeben von L. Engelstoft und C. Molbech. Kopenhagen, verlag der Gyldendal'schen buchhandlung. Druck von Fabritius de Tengnagel. 1837.-4to. pp. xxxii-460. Pp. 421-458, Verzeichniss der merk-würdigsten nom. propria der Friesen.

Schweizerisches museum für historische wissenschaften. Herausgegeben von F. D. Gerlach, J. J. Hot

The Cadet, 1814.

This rev. gentleman went out to Calcutta in the position of his hero, a cadet, and must have seen and mixed in the scenes he describes before he changed his cloth.

Curiously enough, Sir Charles Dallas, the Judge, and brother of Sir Robert, has an allusion to the

value of this traffic in these lines:

"On Miss G-going to India.

No more shall angry moralists declaim
That Indian rapine stains the British name;
Whate'er the plunder of each former day,
In giving thee we more than all repay.'

Poetical Trifles, priv. printed, n. d.

Jochanan could no longer contain himself, and asked an explanation. Elijah explained, "The poor man's wife was to die that very day, and I prayed that the cow might die in redemption of her. The rich man's wall I repaired, for had he done it himself he would have dug a fresh foundation, and would have discovered a buried treasure there; now he will die without so doing. To those whom I wished all to be presidents I wished ill, for where many rule there can be no peace. Those whom I wished to have but one president I really wished well to. The Lord is righteous, his judgments are true, and none may say unto him, What doest thou?""

Parnell ends with

"Lord! as in heaven, on earth thy will be done."

The spirit of the narrative is certainly analogous, but Parnell's illustrations are very inferior in point, sagacity, and character to the above, as given in the Talmud. I have no present means of comparing them with the versions that More and Howell have given. Howell might have picked the tale up in Spain from the influential Jews who so abounded there; but it would be curious to learn whence More drew his version. C. A. WARD. Mayfair.

DR. JOHNSON AND MRS. HANNAH MORE.

Lord Macaulay, when reviewing Croker's edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, referring to the above lady's alleged flattery of the Doctor, writes to his sister, Lady Trevelyan:

J. O. PARNELL'S "HERMIT."-Johnson, in his Life of Parnell, says that Goldsmith observes that the story of the Hermit is in More's Dialogues and Howell's Letters, and is supposed to have been originally Arabian. It is from the Talmud. The Rabbi Jochanan prayed that he might be permitted to gaze on the angel Elijah, and the semblance of a man appeared before him; and Jochanan said, "Let "The lady whom Johnson abused for flattering him me observe thy doings that I may gain wisdom"; according to Croker, Hannah More. Another ill-natured (Boswell's Life of Johnson, April 15, 1778) was certainly, and Elijah replied, "My actions thou couldst not sentence about a Bath lady, whom Johnson called understand, being beyond thy comprehension."empty headed,' is also applied to your godmother.""I will not trouble thee nor question thee," he Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol. i. pp. 227-8. said. "Come," said Elijah; but at thy first The editor of Hannah More's Memoirs refutes question we part company." both of these calumnies. He endeavours to remove the charge of flattery and the odium of a surly rebuke, in this particular instance, by quoting a letter written by Miss Sarah More to her sister, describing a tea party at Sir Joshua Reynolds's; how the Doctor and Hannah More quite monopolized the conversation, and how " they tried who could pepper the highest,'" &c.; and that therefore what has been misrepresented as "fulsome flattery" was merely a contest of raillery.

They came to the house of a poor man, whose only treasure was a cow. The man and his wife were hospitable, they offered them bed and board, and when Elijah left in the morning after his prayer the cow fell dead. "Why didst thou kill the cow?" said the Rabbi. "If I answer thee we part," interrupted Elijah.

They came to a rich man, who entertained them coldly. In the morning Elijah paid a carpenter to mend a hole in the wall, as a return, said he, for the hospitality.

They entered a synagogue, and Elijah cried aloud, "Who will lodge the poor man to-night?" but no reply was given. Elijah re-entered the synagogue in the morning, shook the members by the hand, and said, "May you all become presidents." By night they entered another city, and the congregation invited them into the best lodgings in the city, and showed them all attention. In the morning Elijah said, "May the Lord give you but one president."

As to "the ill-natured sentence," Mrs. More's biographer affirms that on the occasion in question her own correspondence proves that she was not then at Bath (in April, 1776), but was resident in London from January, 1776, to the June of that year, and could not have been the lady then at Bath to whom the Doctor's sarcasm applied (see preface to third edition of Mrs. H. More's Memoirs).

But laying aside this evidence in Mrs. H. More's favour, one cannot help thinking that Boswell would have felt little inclination to "praise" one who on more than one occasion had criticized him CH. ELKIN MATHEWS. pretty sharply.

SINGULAR ADVERTISEMENTS.-The following recently appeared in one of the Philadelphia papers: "A Christian gentleman, who does not use tobacco in any form or intoxicating drinks, with a refined wife (or two Christian ladies), can have, in a nice house of ten rooms, with every convenience, one kitchen, one dining room, first floor, parlor second floor, one chamber thirdstory front, with use of bath room; should they keep a servant can have chamber for her, none others, with use of carpets, shades, lace curtains, furniture, all for the table board of a lady. We want comfort and quiet, with a Christian home. (Sorry to tell it in a newspaper publicity), yet feel obliged to decline one hundred and fifty applicants, in all kindness, respectfully, because they had from 8 to 20 in their families. Call 666 North Twelfth street, from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M., immediately.

"N.B.-No objection to family prayers and vocal blessings at table. Very desirable."

"A genteel Christian gentleman, with a refined wife, can have five rooms, with carpets, furniture, window

shades and lace curtains, with all the conveniences need ful in a modern style house, and give table board towards the rent, or can board out the rent.

We shall not rent

the rooms for any others in the family but man and wife, or two ladies, as we rent but one sleeping room, and we will not rent to any man who uses tobacco in any form, or intoxicating drinks. Therefore, none such need call. We mean what we say. But a Christian, who has family prayers and blessings at table, who is satisfied with this advertisement, is respectfully invited to call with his wife, see the rooms, and learn particulars, at 666 North Twelfth street, from 9 A.M. till 5 P.M. No letters answered."

In another number of the same paper appears the following marriage announcement :— "Millos-Fisher.-On the 11th inst., by Rev. A. Vincent Group, at his residence, 136 Congress street, Philada., No cards. Mr. Frank Millos and Miss Julia Fisher. No cake. Nobody's business."

M. E.

AN ORDER FOR A MEDIEVAL BRASS AT SALISBURY.-John Stretton's will:

·

"Sit super sepulturam meam marmoreus lapis et super lapidem sit una plata integra ad modum mag. Jo. Cranborne cum imagine integra cum ymaginibus jmmobus (?) in lez orfreyes, et in vj partibus lapidis arma, in superiori parte arma B. M. de Sarum, in altera parte arma S. Osmundi, circa medium lapidis in inferiori parte arma Ric. Beauchamp Sar. Epi. et ex altera parte in medio arma com. Warwic' ultimi defuncti et in inferiori parte, arma mei mag. Joh. Stretton, ex altera parte arma mag. Will. Wytham, nuper decani Wells, et quod circa capud meum scribatur credo quod Redemptor meus......Salvatorem meum; supra arma episcopi ponatur mitra, et supra capud mei mag. Jo. Stretton ponatur pulleum, et supra arma dicti mag. Will. alium pulleum."

Denehaugh Close, p. 9; Birflatt, 9; Skugdeanes,
9; Woynes, 9; Penyngmolmer, 11; Battlelaw
Close, 17; Habelaw, 26; Froynter Close, 39;
A. O. V. P.
Thackmires, 41.

ALLEGED AUTOGRAPH PLAY BY SHAKSPEARE.
"An original play, purporting to have been written
by Shakspeare, with marginal notes, additions, and cor-
rections in his own handwriting, has recently been de-
posited in the museum of the Shakspeare house. There
is said to be abundance and variety of evidence to support
its authority, which, if once proved, would render this
the most important literary discovery that has been
made during the last 250 years."
The above, cut from one of our pictorial weeklies,
was probably derived from an oral account of the
MS. play, Sir Thomas More, in the Harleian
Collection, No. 7368 (British Museum), which was
edited by Mr. Dyce in 1844 for the Shakespeare
Society. I can positively assert that there is no-
thing of the kind in the birthplace museum.

A TRUSTEE OF SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE.

NAPOLEON THE GRAND.-The following note, in the handwriting of Bourrienne and signed by Napoleon, is in my possession. I copy it literatim:

"Monsieur le Comte de Sussy, faites moi connaitre quelle est la quantité de grain de toute espèce qui se trouve à Amsterdam afin de prendre des mesures pour en faire venir de ce coté.

"Vne grande nombre de batimens chargés de blé sont arrivés à Marseille. Pourquoi ne faites vous pas mettre cela dans le Moniteur? Sur ce je prie Dieu qu'il vous ait en ta sainte garde. à Paris le 27 mars 1812." I was aware of the customary use of the stately concluding formula, but at first sight was struck with what seemed an odd conjunction of the commonplace and the grand in its employment in JOHN W. BONE, F.S.A. this note.

Queries.

[We must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest, to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.]

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB'S "POETRY FOR CHILDREN."-The Athenæum of the 16th instant announces the recovery of this long missing bibliographical prize. It has turned up in the possession of the Hon. Mr. Sandover, of Adelaide, in South Australia. I cannot agree, however, with the Athenæum that this rediscovery has taken place "in a region that would have seemed unlikely enough to yield such a treasure." Surely for lost and missing books published within the present century our colonies and America have suggested themselves to more than one bibliographer as LOCAL NOMENCLATURE.-In turning over the likely hunting-grounds. In 1870 Mr. MacCarthy early pages of the first volume of Surtees's Durham, caused a rigorous search to be made in the United I came upon the following names of places. It States for that other lost Pleiad of modern literawill be well to record them in "N. & Q.":-ture, Shelley's Poetical Essay on the Existing State

MACKENZIE E. C. WALCOTT.