Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/242

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io< s. v. MARCH 10, igo&

ought to have been paid long since; that the instructions of his client were to demand payment forthwith, and he had to inform him that unless the amount were sent by return of post be should be under the painful necessity of issuing a writ, so that the case might be tried at the ensuing assizes for the county of Lincoln, &c. Mr. Mellor (after- wards Mr. Justice Mellor), 'My friend will permit me to read the answer of Mr. Plaskitt, of Gains- borough,' to whom it was addressed : DEAR SIR, Even so. Yours truly,

W. PLASKITT."

W. B. H.

The following letters are from a newspaper cutting of October, 1867, relating to the restoration of a church at the Land's End:-

DEAR CORK, Ordain Stanhope. Yours,

YORK.

DEAR YORK, Stanhope's ordained. Yours,

CORK.

Sennen, St. Levan, and Buryan formerly constituted a deanery, which for several decades was held by Mr. Stanhope, who was the subject of the Duke of York's laconic epistle to the Bishop of Cork, and the equally laconic reply. B, J. FYNMORE.

ENGLISH SPELLING : ENGLISH CULTURE (10 th S. v. 148). As regards the history of English spelling, see Dr. Ellis's great work on ' Early English Pronunciation ' and Sweet's 'History of English Sounds/ An excellent book on modern English is the Introduction to English, French, and Ger- man Phonetics,' by Miss Laura Soames.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

" VASTERN" (10 th S. iii. 347, 413). The following is from the Camden's Society's volume for 1860, p. 121, foot-note, 'Narrative of the Reformation ' :

" To the north of the town, at the back of Friars' Street, in the map given in Coates's 'History of Reading' will be found fields called Ihe Home Vastern' The Little Vastern, and the Farther Vasterns. There is now a short street called Vastern Street. Fasterne great park, near Wotton Basset, was subject to right of common for the inhabitants of that town (see The Topographer and Genealogist, vol. iii., 1858, p. 22), and perhaps the derivation of the name is from waste or common land in the Latin rastum. Otherwise they might be old enclosures in which cattle were kept fast."

R. J. FYNMORE.

PORTMAN FAMILY (10 th S. v. 48, 150, 178). No doubt the Portman family were originally settled in Somersetshire, and their old man- sion, containing some family portraits, yet remains in that county at Pylle, a small village near Shepton Mallet, Some twenty years ago, when acting as locum tenens for the then rector, I saw them. The church had

undergone restoration, and the memorials (if any had existed) of the family had de- parted. The mansion was then occupied as a farmhouse, and the population of the parish was only 244. The family seats are now at Bryanston, near Blandford, and Orchard Portman, near Taunton.

Let me refer to Burke's ' History of the Commoners,' vol. i. 62 (Colburn, 1836), for an account of the family in early days. The Berkeleys seem to have brought Pylle into the family, and then to have assumed the [ name of Portman. This work, in four volumes, though containing many errors, yet certainly possesses information not to be found elsewhere, and there are at the above reference pedigrees of Portman and Berkeley.

At some little distance from Pylle is the large village of Pilton, and in it is a most remarkable tithe barn, one of the finest in England, used by the abbots of Glastonbury for storing their tithes. There are many churches in England not so beautiful as Pilton tithe barn, and it testifies to the wealth and importance of Glastonbury Abbey, which is at no great distance.

Whether the Portmans and Berkeleys shared in the spoliation when King Henry's might turned church lands into lay, I do not know ; but the old rime still exists :

Portman and Horner, Wyndham and Thynne, When the abbot went out, they came in.

The Abbot of Glastonbury was hanged for participating in the rebellion called the Pilgrimage of Grace, which broke out on the dissolution of the monasteries.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

KING'S MONEY (10 th S. iv. 428). None of your correspondents having answered my querj 7, it may interest them to know that I have found the solution in the Treasury Books at the Record Office ;

" By virtue of His Majesty's general letters of privy seal bearing date the 26 June, 1727, under his- sign manual, the Lords of the Treasury were annually directed (until 1825) to issue 1,000/. to the Chamberlain of the City of London, to be distri- buted by him within the City of London and liberties 'thereof as the king's charity and benevo- lence to the poor inhabiting therein, in such proportions and manner as the Bishop of London and the Lord Mayor of the said City should appoint and direct."

This, then, was the " king's letter money.' 3

E. A. WEBB.

" KES " OR " KESE,' TO KICK (10 th S. v. 127). This word is cognate with Castilian coz t kicking, kick, the verb of which is cocear, from crfce, an old spelling of coz.

E. S. DODGSON.