Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/345

 10 s. vm. OCT. 12, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the great public school Uppingham, 1584 ; also collateral descendant of the famous lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson."

If this implies, as it would seem to do, that " the famous lexicographer " was descended from the founder of Uppingham School, it would be of great interest to hear from Dr. Joseph William Johnson, who appears to have written much on historical subjects, what was the exact line of descent by which William Johnson of Great Cubley, Derbyshire Michael's father who must have been born before 1640, and who is supposed to have been a son of the soil, derived from the venerable founder of 1584. Isaac Johnson. In his ' Annals ' Dr. Johnson, speaking of his visit to London in 1712, when his mother stayed in Little Britain, remarks : "I seem to remember, that I played with a string and a bell, which my cousin Isaac Johnson gave me " (' Johnsonian Miscellanies,' ed. Birkbeck Hill, vol. i. p. 134, foot-note). In my chapter on Andrew Johnson (p. 224) I suggested that Isaac, though his baptism is not recorded at Birmingham, was probably a son of Andrew, whose wife, Sarah Fisher, had relatives christened Isaac. It is, how- ever, worth noting that in Britten's ' Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers,' 2nd ed., 1904, I find an Isaac Johnson who was of the Clockmakers' Company in 1705 (a watch by him is dated 1720), and who could not have been a son of Andrew ; and another Isaac Johnson, who was admitted to the Clockmakers' Company in 1723. The Doctor's remark makes it very possible that his cousin Isaac Johnson lived in London.

Cancelled legacy to Dr. Johnson. In The Gentleman's Magazine for 1784, part ii. pp. 889-91, is given a long abstract of the will of Richard Russell, Esq., who died 30 Sept., 1784, at his house in Bermondsey, from which the following is an extract :

"2,0001. to be laid out in erecting and placing up a monument, to perpetuate my memory, in the parish church of St. John, Southwark, aforesaid.

"And the further sum of 10W. I give to Dr. Samuel Johnson, now or late of Bolt Court, Fleet Street, upon condition he writes an epitaph, to be inscribed on my said monument."

The will was executed on 10 April, 1784 ; and by a codicil dated two days later he revoked the legacy to Dr. Johnson, and gave it to the Rev. John Grose (1758-1821), F.S.A., a divine of whom there is some account in the ' D.N.B.' Accompanying the abstract is a portrait of the testator, and a tabular pedigree showing his descent from the Russells of Rowley Regis. Russell'r legacy is noted also in Manning's ' Surrey,

vol. iii. p. 613. Whether Russell was personally acquainted with Johnson, or why ne altered his mind so quickly as to the epitaph, I have not discovered. Perhaps the Doctor's ill-health had something to do with it : on the very day of Russell's codicil he wrote to Dr. Taylor as to his weak con- dition. ALEYN LYELL READE. Park Corner, Blundellsands, near Liverpool. (To be continued.)

TAXES IN ENGLAND DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVEN- TEENTH CENTURIES.

ABOUT a year ago I ventured to inquire through the medium of ' N. & Q.' for infor- mation upon the system of assessing taxes in England during the Tudor period. The fact that my query has so far met with no answer induces me to believe that hitherto the matter has received little attention. I may therefore perhaps be pardoned if I say something more about it, in the hope that light may be thrown upon so important and obscure a question.

The subsidies voted from time to time by Parliament during the thirteenth and succeeding centuries were in a great measure experiments in the art of taxation. Their manifest object was to reach the pockets of all members of the commonwealth, irrespective of the nature of their tenure. The feudal obligation touched the purses of those only whose land was held by knight- service. Thus the townsfolk, the soccagers, and the free-farmers, to say nothing of the villens, escaped taxation. It is a matter of grave doubt to me whether the last class were ever intended to be included personally. The 1297 25 Edw. I. subsidy was to be levied from the ' ' prodes hommes du reaume. ' ' This must mean the " probi et legal es homines " of the law-books men qualified to sue in the King's courts, to act as jurors, and otherwise to exercise the fullest political rights and duties. The 1301 subsidy is stated to have been more drastic in its appli- cation, and certainly drew from poorer men. But so far as I have been able to check it by contemporary Inquisitions P.M. villens were not assessed (see Yorks Arch. Soc. Rec. Series, vols. xvi., xxi.). These taxes were confined to personalty, and were really levied chiefly on farm stock and produce, and in the towns stock-in-trade and furniture. The assessors were local men, and certainly treated the taxpayers with great liberality. Indeed, to form one's opinion of the condi-