which led from the priory to a fine avenue of trees on the common at Potter Street. What I am anxious to learn is, whether there was at any time a large house or other monastic building on this spot. The avenue (a double one of fine elms) has every appearance of leading to a large mansion, but now conducts only to a few cottages. Yet, as the distance from Latton Church is little more than a mile, could some conventual house once have stood here of which Latton Priory was an offshoot? Any information on this point will oblige. MARGARET.

CLERKS OF THE PEACE.-Can you inform me if there be any and what authority for clerks of the peace signing their surnames only to official documents, as if they were peers of the realm ?

A COMMONER.

E. T. M. WALKER.

WILLIAM SAVERY.-Can you give me an account of the ancestry and pedigree of William Savery, the eminent missionary and minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends, who was born in Philadelphia in 1750, and a journal of whose life and labours, compiled from his original memoranda by Jonathan Evans, is now extant? Was he a scion of the Savery family of the "old colony," and, if so, what was the relationship? A tradition has come down from my grandfather-who died about 1826, and whom I find to have been a descendant in the fourth generation from the first ancestor in Massachusetts of a branch, if not of the whole, of the Saverys of that state-that one relative of his had removed from the original seat of the family to Philadelphia, and another to New York; or rather that one relative had removed to one of those

CANADIAN.

"COMMENCING" v. "BEGINNING."-In a criticism which appeared a short time since in the Saturday Review on my last novel, In a World of His Own, the critic comments on the fact that, in describing some festivities supposed to have taken place, speak of the ball as commencing," not "be-cities and another to the vicinity of the other. ginning." My words run thus (vol. i. p. 64):— "The whole (festivities) to conclude with a superb display of fireworks on the lake and a ball commencing an hour before midnight." In defence of my use of the word I quote from Smith, who in his Synonyms (p. 99) says:-"Like all words of Latin origin commence has a more emphatic and dignified force than begin. Formal and public transactions, ceremonies, and the like are said to commence; common and familiar things to begin." This is illustrated by a quotation from Strype. Can any of your correspondents give me a higher authority than Smith or Strype for the use of the word 66 commence" in the above sense?

THE AUTHOR OF "IN A WORLD OF HIS OWN."

SIR NATHANIEL BACON.-Where can one find anything about this very considerable painter? Bryan and Stanley's Dictionary gives little, and styles him inaccurately the brother of Sir Francis Bacon. He was the half-brother. Phillips's Dictionary mentions two Sir Nathaniels; the first it styles son of the Lord Keeper, born 1546, with no date of death; of the other it records "English landscape painter," with only the date of death, 1615. Are they both the same man? Stanley says he is called an amateur who painted for amusement. He went to Italy, however, though his style is Flemish. In truth, he reached the perfection of a master. His own portrait by himself and his THE MERCERS' COMPANY.-Could a person mother's are said to be at Gorhambury, and he legally style himself "mercer" in the seventeenth painted a great deal. Can one find any list of his century who was not free of the Mercers' Com-works, and are there any in London? Stanley pany? Is there any account of the tradesmen who says he desired to be known as a painter, for that lived in Paternoster Row about Charles II.'s in Culford Church his monument has in addition time? Were they chiefly mercers? Pepys men- to his bust a palette and pencils. How is it that tions purchasing there a suit of clothes on June 1, he is so little known? We have not so many 1665. Information is wanted as to the families of English painters that we can spare so eminent a Gredier and Moyse, living at St. Margaret's-at-man. The relative of the great Chancellor ought Cliff, in Kent, in 1680; as also of a Samuel not to have been overlooked. C. A. WARD. Pickering, a merchant of Charlestown, S. Carolina, Mayfair. who died there in 1727. C. P. C.

"THE GLOOMY BREWER.". The quotation of the verse from the Talking Oak (ante, p. 105) suggests the question, What made Tennyson call

"BLACKGOWNS AND REDCOATS."-Who was the author of this clever satire, which was published in 1834, when the Duke of Wellington was elected Chancellor of Oxford? It is in six parts,

(5th S. ix. 347, 389.)

Rhine for the reception of English grain. Hence it would follow that " a large portion of the country was (not) dense forest" when the AngloSaxons invaded England. The easy conquest of the country by the comparatively small armies which came across from the Continent points to a settled, well-farmed nation, the natives of which had been growing grain for their Roman masters and had lost their martial habits.

The division of land by lot dates back to the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. The allodths established by the Anglo-Saxons do not appear to have become the private property of the occupiers, if the word "property can properly be applied to land. It was a possession held under the state. The land was all folc land distributed to individuals or families by the Folc-gemot. The right to grant land by charter, and thus convert it into boc (book or charter) lands, was the gradual growth of centuries; even King Alfred, in his will, draws the distinction between the folc land and the boc land which he possessed. The system of landholding previous to the Norman invasion was feudal, and there is a legal decision to that effect of the Irish Court of King's Bench in the reign of Charles I. The essence of the system of landholding before and after the Norman conquest was the same, though its mode of expression was different. That which was folc land in the former became crown land in the latter, inasmuch as the power of the monarch waxed while that of the people waned, but they alike declared against private property in land. Norman feudalism only gave a life use of the land; the feud returned to the superior on the death of the feudee. ture was a donation for life, and primer seizin was the rent received by the superior during the time the feud was in his actual possession, between the death of the feudee and the investiture of his successor, in whose selection the superior exercised a

I have grave doubts whether the term "our Teutonic ancestors," used by MR. PICTON, is correct. The Teutons were not one of the original great families nor were they at any time a seafaring race. The Angles and the Saxons who invaded England were evidently of Scandinavian not of Teutonic descent, and I think modern historians have not placed sufficient stress upon the fact that the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England was not colonization, but emigration. The district left vacant by the migration to England was subse-choice. quently occupied by other races, but it does not follow that there was a community of customs between the race which left the region now known as Schleswig Holstein and that which subsequently occupied it. I think MR. PICTON does not take into account the great changes that took place in England during the occupancy by the Romans, which covered a period of more than five centuries. The Romans claimed the ownership of the lands of conquered countries, and exacted corn rents in England. Grain had often to be carried very great distances, and the cost of carriage became such a burden that the law compelling the English farmers to deliver their grain at certain places was modified by a law of Julius Agricola. The grain rent of England became so much in excess of the food required by the Roman soldiers that fleets of grain-laden vessels left the English ports, and the Romans erected large granaries along the

Investi

The

At the present time the largest estate a British subject can have is tenancy-in-fee and a tenant I cannot trace back even holds but does not own. that ownership further than the reign of Henry VII., when retainers were abolished. The wars of the Plantagenets were a long struggle between the nobles and the crown; the former sought to make the possession of their lands hereditary. crown rights which implied direct ownership were not surrendered until the time of Charles II., when he gave up wards and liveries, primer seizin, and other rights in exchange for a tax on beer. If MR. PICTON wishes to see the grounds on which I base my opinions, he will find them at length in The History of Landholding in England and in that of Ireland, but I have tried to condense into a few paragraphs that which appears to be pertinent to the subject.

With regard to the measurement of land, I may

Waterford.

JOSEPH FISHER.

which is a very wide one, permit me to point out, Without going very deeply into this question, with all deference to MR. PICTON, another source for the origin of private property. In every village community there were the enclosed habitations of the villagers, afterwards known collectively as the village, tún, or town. This represents the centre point from which issued all the rights over the adjacent territory and in the community. Each of the free villagers had there his homestead, his house, courtyard, farm-buildings (Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. 49), and as much land as was requisite to form a garden, kitchen garden, and for flax and other culture which required a constant protection (Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. 17). These permanently enclosed plots, transferred from Germany to the land of RomanoBritain, became sacred as the home-the Englishman's castle, in popular phraseology-and soon lose their distinctive history in the wider history of the law of real property which has yet to be written.

repeat what I have already written to "N. & Q.," to consult The History of Landholding in England that the original integer of all our measurements I will be very glad to transmit him a copy. is something connected with the human frame. Thus we have the nail, the finger (eight of which make a yard), the hand-breadth, the span (onefourth of a yard), the cubit (from the elbow to the tip of the finger), the yard (from the stretched-out arm to the ear), and the fathom (from the tip of one outstretched hand to that of the other). The English land measure finds its integer in the step or pace, which is on the average thirty-three inches; two of them make in this country what is called a spade (5 ft. 6 in.), and three spades make the rod or pole (16 ft. 6 in.); forty poles make the furlong, and eight furlongs the mile. The mile of 1,760 yards is 1,920 paces of thirty-three inches each. The measures of surface have the same integer. Two steps or paces (5 ft. 6 in.) make the spade; three spades (16 ft. 6 in.), the perch or rod. The square perch, 304 square yards, is simply the perch, 5 yds. by 5 yds.; forty perches make the rood and four roods the acre. I think the integer of lineal as well as that of surface measure is the human pace, 2 ft. 9 in., and I have seen uneducated men lay off pieces of land of a quarter, a half, or a whole acre in a few moments, by stepping it, ec. g., if the distance of twenty-four steps Reach thirty-three inches), i.e. the length of four perches or rods, be taken and marked at each end, and the walker proceed at a right angle, he will at the end of the sixtieth step (ten perches) have reached a quarter of an acre; at the one hundred and twentieth (twenty perches) it will be half an acre; and at the end of the two hundred and fortieth (forty perches) an acre. Of course if the base be widened the distance will be proportionately shortened.

I am not at all clear that the hide of land was arrived at by multiplying or building up from the acre, and am more disposed to think it was arrived at by dividing. I have usually seen it estimated at 120 acres. MR. PICTON states it at 160 acres. According to the laws of Athelstan, "If a ceorl so thrived that he had fully five hides of land (600 acres), church and kitchen, bell house and back gatescal, and special duty in the king's hall, then he was thenceforth thane right worthy." He ascended in the social scale from the position of ceorl to that of thane. This may have been altered under the Normans. The term thane gave place to that of knight. William I. divided England into 60,215 knights' fees; if each of them was four hides of 160 acres, or 640 acres, it would make 38,537,600 acres, and according to recent surveys the area is only 32,590,397 acres. If the knight's fee was four hides of 120 acres, or 480 acres each, 60,215 would absorb 28,903,200 acres, and leave between three and four million acres for the royal parks. If MR. PICTON, with whom I have not the pleasure of being acquainted, wishes

G. LAURENCE GOMME.

[Further replies next week.]

THE CHANGE IN THE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN (5th S. ix. 387, 438; x. 29.)-I think M. H. R. has misunderstood the questions of MR. HART and H. N., and so has not, strictly speaking, replied to them. They ask when and by whom that pronunciation of Latin was introduced which is familiar to most of the readers of "N. & Q." he answers by describing the main features of the new pronunciation recently adopted at our universities. As regards the former, English scholars up to this time have merely done like scholars on the Continent-pronounced the letters of Latin words according to the usual pronunciation of the same letters in their own language. Thus the great Roman orator is called by the Italians Chichero (I use the letters to express the same sound as in English), by the French Sisero. I do not know how far it is the fact that the ecclesiastical pronunciation is identical throughout the churches of the Roman obedience, still less how far it was so in the fifteenth century. If it was so, the change may be attributed to the Reformation: not directly, as though it had been adopted for polemical purposes, but indirectly, the tradition kept up by ecclesiastical usage being broken when the public prayers of various countries were put into the vulgar tongue. I believe Mr. Ellis has found reason to conclude that the broad a was used in English in the time of Shakspeare; if so, no doubt it was also used in Latin as spoken by Englishmen, and the change in the vowel sound in