REPLIES:- The "Arcadia" Unveiled, 150-Law of Lauriston, 151-James Shergold Boone, 153-Magical Crystals or Mirrors, 155- The Primrose Ring Motto -Families of Beke and Speke-Incomes of Peers in the Seventeenth Century - Bochart-Thomas, Earl of Norfolk Rooke Family Proverb- Fast Great Crosby Goose Feast-Crush a Cup- The Sacrifice of Isaac New Ross, co. Wexford-Sir Toby Mathew-Cold in June-Jest Books - Lady Lisle, &c. 156. Notes on Books, &c. Notes. PERSHORE "BUSH-HOUSES." From time immemorial the inhabitants of Pershore have claimed, and a great number have exercised, the right to sell beer for three days at "the fair" without licenses. The exercise of the right is notorious; the oldest inhabitant recollects it "ever since he was a boy," and his father sold before him. Indeed, "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." The custom has never been interfered with or even questioned by the Excise or other authorities, up to the passing of the statute of 25 and 26 Vic. cap. 22, which introduced the "occasional license" system. After the last Pershore Fair, held on three days in the last week of June, 1863, the Excise authorities, of course acting under legal advice, laid informations against a batch of alleged contraveners of the said statute, alias "bush-house keepers," and summonses were issued against ten persons, who were severally charged, upon Excise informations, under 4th and 5th William IV. c. 85, s. 17, with selling "half a pint of beer," on the 26th of June last (Pershore Fair day), without a license. These were not the only bush-house keepers that sold beer, but the others who sold were not summoned. The case was heard at Petty Sessions, on July 28, before an unusually full bench of magistrates; and, after a lengthened inquiry, was dismissed. In the course of his speech Mr. Clutterbuck, the counsel for the defence, said, that Pershore was not the only place where similar customs existed. He instanced a fair held by the Lord of the Manor at Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire, and the Barton Fair, Gloucester, where the Excise authorities attempted to upset ancient rights, and were signally beaten. The foregoing case has drawn forth a very interesting communication on "Bush-Houses," published in The Worcester Herald for August 8, the which I herewith transmit to you, in 1863; case you should with me in thinking it worthy agree of preservation in "N. & Q." From its initial signature "N.," it is evidently written by a former contributor to these pages, MR. JOHN NOAKE: the learned author of Worcester in the Olden Time; Rambler in Worcestershire; Notes and Queries for Worcestershire, &c. &c. "Some interest has been excited, not only among the parties immediately concerned, but with the general public, and antiquaries especially, by the Excise informations against the Pershore bush-houses,' which the local magistrates last week thought proper to dismiss. The question is one of greater significance than at first sight appears, owing to the right claimed by the Excise to override an ancient charter by the statute of 25 and 26 Victoria. "Henry the Third, on the 4th of May, in the 11th year of his reign, 'gave to God, our blessed Lady, and St. Edburgh of Pershore, and to the abbot and monks there, a fair on the feast of St. Edburgh and two days following; now kept June 26, according to ancient custom." So says Nash, and so far Mr. Clutterbuck was correct in quoting the historian of Worcestershire; but the penalty of 107. on anybody who should intrude on their games' was incorrectly coupled with the fair, with which it had nothing to do, but was a penalty levied on any one who should intrude' on the abbot and convent's free warren of various manors named in the charter, and take their 'game.' King Edward the Second recited the above charter, and conferred a further patent, which was rehearsed and renewed by Henry the Fifth and Henry the Sixth; and under that charter Pershore fair and all its concomitants continue to be held. "Meanwhile let us see what legislation has been doing during the five or six centuries that the Pershore charter has been in existence. The first enactment by which alehouses were regulated by Act of Parliament was the 11th of Henry the Seventh-an Act against vacabounds and beggers,' which empowered two justices to rejecte and put awey comen ale selling in townes and places where they shall think convenyent, and to take suertie of the keepers of alehouses of theyr gode behavyng.' In 1828, the 9th Geo. IV. c. 61, a general Act was passed, which repealed all former statutes on the subject, and regulated the granting of alehouse licenses. The 1st Wm. IV. c. 64, withdrew the authority of granting licenses to houses for the sale of ale, beer, and cider only, from the local magistrates, in whose hands it had been vested for three centuries, and created a new class of alehouse keepers, distinct from those licensed by magistrates, giving to the former facilities for obtaining licenses upon IV. c. 85, and 3 and 4 Vic. c. 61, amended and slightly a small pecuniary payment only. The 4th and 5th Wm. modified former Acts; and 25 and 26 Vic. c. 22, which introduced the occasional license' system, enacts (clause 12): So much of any Act as permits the sale of beer, spirits, or wine, at fairs or races, without an Excise license, shall be and the same is hereby repealed.' "The charter, then, by which Pershore fair and its usual accessories are still held, having been considered as unaffected by any statute hitherto passed, it only remains to connect the bush-houses' with the other privileges hitherto enjoyed under that charter. This brings us to the origin of bush-houses.' The very use of a bush implies great antiquity, for long before Henry the Seventh first handled alehouses by Act of Parliament, the bush was hung out as a sign that something good was to be had within. It is a question still whether bushes preceded signs proper. The proverb is well-known, Good wine needs no bush; that is, needs nothing to point out where good stuff is on sale, as its merits soon becoming known in the vicinity, would be sufficient to attract customers without the invitation of a sign. The following passage from Good Newes and Bad Newes, by S. R. (1622), seems to prove that anciently tavern keepers had both a sign and a bush. A landlord (a host,' we ought to say) was speaking: · "I rather will take down my bush and sign As does the following, that anciently putting up boughs upon anything was an indication that it was to be sold, which may also be the reason why an old besom- which is a sort of dried bush is put up at the topmast head of a ship or boat when she is to be sold. Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, quotes an author, who, in 1598, wrote Good wyne needes no ivie bush.' In England's Parnassus (1600) the first line of the address to the reader runs thus: I hang no ivie out to sell my wine.' And in Braithwaite's Strappado for the Divell (1615), p. 1, there is a dedication to Bacchus, 'sole soveraigne of the ivy bush.' In Dekker's Wonderful Yeare (1603) we read: 'Spied a bush at the ende of a pole, the aunciente badge of a countrey alehouse.' At Pershore, instances have been known of a bough being suspended from a pole, but this does not appear to have formed part of the custom proper. In Vaughan's Golden Grove (1608) is the following passage: 'Like as an ivy bush, put forth at a vintrie, is not the cause of the wine, but a signe that wine is to be sold there: so likewise if we see smoke appearing in a chimney we know that fyre is there, albeit ye smoke is not ye cause of ye fyre. The following is from Harris's Drunkard's Cup, p. 299: Nay, if the house be not worth an ivy-bush, let him have his tooles about hym; nutmegs, rosemary, tobacco, with other the appurtenances, and he knowes how of puddle ale to make a cup of English wine.' Coles, in his Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants, p. 65, says: Box and ivy last long green, and therefore vintners make their garlands thereof; though perhaps ivy is the rather used because of the antipathy between it and wine.' The Pershore people generally use oak and elm boughs, though a cabbage has been known to be substituted. In a curious poem entitled Poor Robin's Perambulation from Saffron Walden to London, July, 1678, at p. 16, we read: 'Some alehouses upon the road I saw, And some with bushes, showing they wine did draw. A note in the Lansd. MS. 226, f. 171, upon the Tavern Bush, by Bishop Kennett, says: "The dressing the frame or bush with ivy leaves fresh from the plant was the custom forty years since, now generally left off for carved work.' In Scotland a wisp of straw upon a pole was formerly the indication of an alehouse; and in old times such as sold horses were wont to put flowers or boughs upon their heads, to reveale that they were vendible.' "Here, then, we have the bush in connection with wine vending carried back to a remote antiquity; and through that period, as well as the succeeding one, when ale became the more popular liquor, the bush seems to have been used at Pershore in an unbroken succession. It is to be noted that the use of the 'bush' at Pershore has not been attempted on other occasions than fairs, but confined to them a confirmation of the popular tradition that the two privileges (the holding of fairs and selling by the bush) had in some way a common origin, and descended to them together, as a twin legacy, from remote antiquity. Besides which, although Pershore fair has faded away to two days, the custom is never to remove the bushes till the end of the third day; thus further identifying it with the ancient three days' fair. And up to the present time the bush-house keepers claim to sell for three whole days. A similar custom, the writer was told, prevailed at Gloucester, where it was confined to a particular street, and was for the fair and three successive Mondays. N. "N.B.-The Bush Inn, Worcester, is one of the earliest inns mentioned in the Corporation archives nearly as far back as the Reformation, and may have existed much earlier." CUTHBERT Bede. "But when St. Dunstan had got King Edgar on his side to favour the monks, then he pressed the married clergy to leave their wives, which they refusing, were deprived, and the monks put in their benefices; who invented this story, viz., that those married Persons who disobeyed St. Dunstan's order were, with their wives and children, transformed into Eels, from whence the Isle of Ely took its name, and this I take to be as credible a metamorphosis as any in Ovid." There is an astounding derivation of the Ludi Circenses given in a work entitled The Romane Antiquities Expounded in English, London, 1628: 66 Lastly, these Cirque shews had their appellation of Circenses, either from the Great Cirque or shew-place called Circus Maximus, where the games were exhibited; or from the Swords wherewith the plaiers were environed, as one would say Circa Enses!" These Circuses Kennett, in his Romæ Antique Notitia, London, 1704, always styles "Circos." The same work, which gives the "Circa Enses,” deduces Feriæ from ferire,-" because," as it goes on to say, "they did upon such daies Ferire victimas, id est, offer up sacrifice." The difference in quantity between the antepenult of feria and ferio would make against this; and the word seems to be better traced to the same root as festus. At p. 81 the twofold derivation of funus is mentioned, with a leaning towards funis: — "Now these Funerals sometimes were commonly towards night, insomuch that they used torches: these torches they properly called Funalia, a funibus cero circumdatis, unde et Funus dicitur. Others are of opinion that Funus is so said from the Greeke word póvos, signifying death or slaughter." of Little Busby. Mr. Ord assigns two wives only Wheatly, Common Prayer, p. 474, ed. Bohn, yers, buried at Stokesly, June 18, 1660.” (1st wife.) has the following on the use of torches at funerals: "The primitive Christians, indeed, by reason of their persecutions, were obliged to bury their dead in the night; but when afterwards they were delivered from these apprehensions, they voluntarily retained their old custom, only making use of lighted torches, which we still continue, as well, I suppose, for convenience, as to express their hope of the departed's being gone into the regions of light.' Thomas Godwyn, in his book, Moses and Aaron, London, "Printed by John Haviland, and are to be sold by Philemon Stephens & Christopher Meredith at their shop at the Signe of the Golden Lion in Paul's Churchyard," 1628, derives epaTEVEL, ingeniously enough, from the Hebrew Taraph, or Tharaph, the root of Teraphim, which root, he says, "signifieth in general the complete image of a man;' " and so, more particularly taken, an idol, answering to the Penates or Lares of the Romans. He gives a curious account of the mode in which the Rabbis say these images were made: : "They killed a man that was a first borne sonne, and wrung off his head, and seasoned it with salt and spices, and wrote upon a plate of gold the name of an uncleane spirit, and put it under the head upon a wall, and lighted candles before it and worshipped it." Liddell and Scott make Separeve to be akin to Oéрw, Oáλw, answering to Lat. fuveo, foveo. Godwyn also gives two derivations of the name Hercules; the one" from the Hebrew, heircol, illuminavit omnia," and the other from the Greek: "Heracles, quid aliud est quam pas Kλéos, i. e. æris gloria: quæ porro alia est æris nisi solis illuminatio?" Lidd. and Scott, however, derive it from "Hpa quasi pws, German, Herr (Ang. Sir), in its earliest usage, and kλéŋs, kλéos. They compare also the Latin Herus. Donaldson, New Cratylus, section 329, connects it with "Hpa as well as pws. ""Hẞn," he says, 66 appears as the wife of 'Hpákλns, and the daughter of "Hpa." In the next section he compares kúpios with the German Herr and Latin herus; and conceives that ήρως and κύριος may have a cognate origin. Εῤῥος, he says, was another name for Zeus," and as the old Greek Gods went in pairs, . . . suppose that this is but another way of writing the masculine of "Hpa. MARWOOD FAMILY. we may well 66 Dorothy, daughter of Sir Allen Bellingham, of Levens, in co. Westmoreland, married at Heversham, July 6, 1663." (2nd wife.) I find that "Henry Marwood, esqr. and Mris. Margarett D'arcy," were married at Hornby, co. York, May 19, 1658. (Nichols's Topog. and Genealogist.) The above-named Dorothy was second daughter of (not Sir Allen Bellingham, but of) Alan Bellingham, Esq. Alan appears to be the correct spelling, as it was in allusion to the first purchaser of Levins that the rhyme, occurring in painted glass at the hall, was made: "Amicus Amico Alanus Belliger Belligero Bellinghamus." [Nicolson and Burn, Hist. of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Henry Marwood married, 3rdly (before 1679), Martha, second daughter of Sir Thomas Wentworth of Empsall, in Yorkshire, Knt. (Wotton's Baronetage. Guillim, 5th edit. "Atchievements of Esquires.") She was buried at Kensington, as shown by the register : "The Lady Marwood, from St. Ann's, Westminster, buried Sep. 28, 1704."-Lysons's Environs of London. The date of the decease and the burial place of Sir William Marwood, fourth and last baronet, are not given by Mr. Ord. The Gent. Mag. announces the death "Feb. 23, 1740, near Leicester Fields." Sir Wm. was buried at Paddington, as by the register Margaret Lady Marwood, Aug. 16, 1740.” In Paddington church, pulled down 1791, there was a monument to Sir W. Marwood. (Lysons's Environs of London.) My interest in the Marwoods, however, is directed more particularly to the Honiton family; and I shall be glad indeed if W. BOWEN ROWLANDS. of any readers your can assist me with any information that will connect Dr. Thomas Marwood, physician to Queen Elizabeth, with the main line of Westcote, from which it seems probable that he was descended. The Marwoods of Westcote had some local connection with the town, for the widow of John Marwood (daughter and heir of John Holbeam) married, 2ndly, Robert Pollard, of Honiton. The In the course of some attempts to connect the different branches of Marwood, I have looked into Ord's Hist. of Cleveland, and found two or three omissions as well as inaccuracies in the otherwise complete and careful pedigree of the Marwoods Harl. MSS. state also that Joane Marwood (daughter of Wm. Marwood by his second wife, Agnes, daughter and heir of Wm. Squire), married Robt. Pollard, whose son, Sir Lewis, was father of Sir Hugh Pollard, who was connected with Honiton, and suffered during the Commonwealth. JOHN A. C. VINCENT. 90, Great Russell Street. EARLDOM OF CARRIC: SIR JOHN MENNIS: ENDYMION PORTER. In the Observations on the Ancient Earldom of Carric, a few copies of which were printed a few years ago by me, after referring to the more recent creation of John Stewart, second son of the Earl of Orkney, by patent from Charles I., misled by the last edition of Douglas, I adopted the statement without proper investigation, that the Lady Margaret Stewart, the only child of the Earl, married Sir John Mennis, and that by an only daughter the Carric representation had devolved upon the Lords Willoughby de Broke. This assumption turns out to be erroneous; for although a Mennis married the Lady Margaret, it was not Sir John, but his elder brother Sir Mathew, Knight of the Bath. Their only child was a female, who was twice a wife; and having had no surviving issue of the first marriage, her only daughter by the second one carried the representation into the family of Heath, and from them it was transferred to the Willoughbies de Brokes. 66 By family papers it now is proved that the Earl covenanted to give a goodly "tocher," as it is called in Scotland, on occasion of the nuptials, not, however, to be payable until his demise. When that event occurred, it turned out that during his lifetime he had given his heritable property in Orkney to his natural son, to whom also at his demise he devised all his moveable effects; so that Sir Mathew took nothing by the contract but the luxury of a law-suit, if he chose to indulge in one. Lady Margaret died before her husband, leaving an only child, a daughter, as just mentioned; but the earldom was destined to heirs gotten of his body," so that it became extinct. Kinclevin, a barony created by charter, would, if it had been looked into at the time, have gone to his granddaughter; but the young lady was a minor at the time, and her father, Sir Mathew, died before she came of age; indeed, she was, upon attaining her majority, not likely to derive any benefit from her several claims. She and her husband did not perhaps fancy there was much to be got in that country, or her English legal advisers might have imagined that the inferior title had merged or been absorbed in the higher one, according to a notion then existing, but exploded in the next century in the Fitz-Walter case, after taking the opinion of the twelve judges. (See Collins, 268.) It is, moreover, not unlikely that the Mennis family was ignorant of the original constitution of the barony of Kinclevin, and gave themselves no trouble about what was, after all, a landless peerage, of no great moment to an Englishman, and one to be litigated about at a time when civil war was raging over the whole face of the country. The Willoughby de Brokes last century made some inquiry about the earldom; at least a notice to that effect occurs in a Scotch newspaper; but if the English professional adviser sent down on the errand knew as little about Scotch law as usually happens, his discovery of a remainder to heirs "male gotten" of the earl's body would easily induce him to think that there was no occasion for further inquiry. Sir Mathew Mennis was, as his will indicates, a man of considerable wealth. Besides providing handsomely both in lands and money for his daughter, he devised valuable estates to his brother Sir John, whose satirical powers, as evinced in his poetical lucubrations, are only inferior-if they are at all inferior to those of Butler. There is one part of Sir Mathew's will in relation to Endymion Porter which we have thought worthy of transcribing, and it is not unlikely that some of your readers may be able to throw light upon it: "And as touchinge the great plott and Conspiracy against me by Indimion Porter and his agents, wherein I suffered in my estate seventeen thousand pounds, at least as appears in the Petition exhibited in the Commons house, I so desire that such reparation may bee endeavoured to be had as shall bee just, and myself restored, from the scandall so unjustly thrown upon me." What was the conspiracy, and in what way could Sir Mathew have been mulcted in so large a sum as 17,0007.? The will bears date May 7th, 1648, and upon June 2 of the following year letters of administration were taken out by EdThe other three were Sir Thomas Peyton, Knight ward Leventhorpe, Esq., one of the executors. and Baronet; Sir John Mennis, and Edward Boyse, Senior, Esq. It is very probable that the Mennis family was Scotish, and that it was originally spelt Menzies. Minor Notes. J. M. nearly fifty years. With a feeling, quite natural perhaps, but yet hardly to be expected in one who had passed through so many of the more elevated of the artificial scenes of life, he caused himself to be carried in a chair to an obscure part of the Old Town, where he had resided during the most of his early years. He expressed a particular anxiety to know if a set of holes in the paved court before his father's house, which he had used for some youthful sport, continued in existence; and on finding them still there, it is said that the aged statesman was moved almost to tears." "in September, 1851, the 'Seringapatam,' Captain Furnell, experienced a severe cyclone there, which was apparently travelling to the W. b. S., or W.S.W. Captain F., warned by his barometer and the sea, very properly hove to in 7° S., long. 58° east, till the centre had passed him; his barometer falling from 30-50 to 29-50. Hence, ships should be on their guard even in this low latitude." Since the publication of the Weather-Book, another cyclone has been recorded in the same locality by Mr. R. P. Brunton (Proceedings of the British Meteorological Society, March 1863, p. 330). This was on the 11th and 12th of October, 1862; and Mr. Brunton who, like Admiral Fitzroy, appears to have overlooked the case recorded by Piddington, says that "This hurricane, the only one on record as having done so, passed directly over Mahé; it was accompanied by incessant and heavy rain, but with no thunder or light ning. It was probably a cyclone of no very great diameter, as the Nepaul' steampacket experienced it at thirty miles distance from the island.” Here then, we have additional proof that Piddington's warning should not be unheeded. Q. LISTON, THE ACTOR.-Amongst some old family papers I lately found a letter, or copy of a letter, of which I subjoin a transcript. It is addressed to Liston, and is made up of the names of plays which were popular in the last century. I shall be glad if any reader of "N. & Q." can tell me the name of the writer, and whether the letter has ever been published :· "Friend Liston, Better late than never. You are All in the wrong to make yourself such a Busybody about acting; but Every Man in his humour. I'll tell you what, he would if he could be a Critic, a very Peeping Tom; such things are the rage. All's well that ends well. I scorn to bours, then we could have the School for Scandal, a Quarplay the Hypocrite, and wish we were Next door Neighter of an Hour before Dinner, or Half an Hour after Supper; talk of Ways and Means, the Wheel of Fortune, the Follies of a Day, Humours of an Election, and make quite a Family Party, be all in Good Humour, and never have the Blue Devils; but may you and your lady always prove the Constant Couple. Pray how is Miss in her Teens? By-and-by she will be sighing Heigho for a Husband. I hope he will not prove a Deaf Lover, but may they possess Love for Love. You are a Married Man, and know how to Rule a Wife, and Mrs. L. I have no doubt understands The Way to keep him: may she prove a Grandmother, and be happy in her Son-in-Law. Now as to this letter, What d'ye call it? Believe me, in this Romance of an Hour I do not mean Cross Purposes, but rather hope it will be the Agreeable Surprise. You may wonder, but the author is the Child of Nature, whose whole life has been a Chapter of Accidents and Much Ado about Nothing, who endeavours to keep up his vivacity Abroad when he says he is and at Home, has Two Strings to his Bow, and is no Liar Yours truly, F. L. "Aug. 8th, 1802. Sunday, Sevenoaks, Kent." EDWARD J. WOOD. relates that the millet in the Mesopotamian plains ANCIENT CEREAL PRODUCTIVENESS.-Diodorus attained the height of twelve feet, with proportional weight of grain; and we read in Pliny (Nat. Hist. 1. xviii. c. 10), that the Procurator of Byzacium (now Tunis) sent to Augustus a fasciculus of 400 stalks, the produce of a single grain. Subsequently a similar sample was presented to Nero of 360 stalks, with proportional weight of corn. Thus were the granaries filled by the emperors for the turbulent populace of Rome, with the produce of the Asian and African plains, now utterly barren and waste from want of tilth and irrigation. "Vix credibile dictu," Pliny adds, and we may well share his astonishment, when he relates the ridiculously inexpert method of cultivation; the plough being drawn by a donkey and an old woman "vili asino et anu " (1. xvii. c. 5). I believe this extraordinary productiveness was in chief part due to careful manual tilth, and dibbling grain by grain at due intervals; and if |