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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. i. FEB. 20, 1910.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

ELIZABETHAN HERALDIC MSS. Mr. Sidney Lee in the preface to the revised American edition of his well-known ' Life of Shake- speare ' (the Macmillan Company, 1909) describes on p. xii two MSS. lent to him by Messrs. Pearson & Co. of Pall Mall Place. These two MSS., he says, may confidently be ascribed to the year 1599. The first is an elaborate exposure of then current heraldic scandals, and is in the handwriting of William Smith, Rouge Dragon at that date. The other is "a paper book of seventeen leaves " in two different handwritings, one of which Mr. Lee cannot identify, but the other of which is the autograph of Ralph Brooke, York Herald.

These two MSS. as described by Mr. Lee certainly seem to deserve wide attention, but on the contrary seem to have attracted none at all. The first of them vilifies Shake- speare's friends Augustine Phillipps and Thomas Pope as seekers of false heraldry ; and the second MS. charges Shakespeare himself with procuring commission of the same offence.

My object is to ask for more information as to these two MSS. How lately have they been discovered, and what has been their hiding-place all these years ? years, it will be remembered, covering those when Halliwell-Phillipps used to keep standing advertisements in the newspapers offering good prices for just such MSS. as these.

If Messrs. Pearson possess contemporary MSS. settling for ever the question (as these two seem to settle it) of the fraudulent cha- racter of the Shakespeare heraldry, the student ought to have access to them : they at least ought to be facsimiled for the benefit of Shakespearian scholarship. Have any steps been taken to reprint these MSS. ? Where are they now ? Can they be in- spected ? HENRY DANE FRENCH.

110, East Seventy-Ninth Street, New York City.

GARGOYLES. Can any reader give me information as to books or articles which treat of the history of gargoyles and other grotesque figures in ecclesiastical archi- tecture ? I have heard that an excellent article was written comparatively lately on this subject ; but I can get no further information with regard to it. Can any

reader tell me in what publication this article appeared ?

I have the article on ' Gothic Grotesques *

Eublished in The Builder's Journal last eptember. C. W. A. PRESTON.

Offenham Vicarage, Evesham.

YORK MINSTER MONUMENTS. I shall be glad if readers will kindly let me know the name and address of a leading or other representative of any of the following persons, who are commemorated in monu- ments or tablets in York Minster, and who died in the years indicated :

Archbishop Piers (1594).

Archdeacon Richardson of North Bierley (1735). Archdeacon Pearson (1715).^ Dr. Brearey of Menstone (17.35). Dr. Daltry of Bradenham, Wycombe (1773). S. Terrick, whose son was Bishop of Peterborough (1718).

William Burgh of Bert, Kildare (1809). Ann Beanett (1601). Ensign Henry Whettam (1809). John Crofts of Stillington (1820). Gibsons of Welburne (1715, &c.) Thorrvhills of Fixby (1768, &c.)

GEORGE AUSTEN. The Residence, York.

MONEY : ITS COMPARATIVE VALUE. I seek information respecting the comparative value of money in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nine- teenth centuries. Could any of your corre- spondents inform me where I could obtain such knowledge ? Hallam, in his ' View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,' written in 1816, estimates any given sum under Henry III. and Edward I. (i.e., during the thirteenth century) as equivalent in general command over commodities to about 24 or 25 times its nominal value at present ; and in the middle of the fifteenth century he regards 16 as a proper multiple.

CHRISTOPHER HOLFORD.

[Many communications on the subject will be found iii the earlier Series of ' N. Q.' Since then Thorold Rogers's volumes on the * History of Agri- culture and Prices in England, 1259-1793,' and his ' Six Centuries of Work and Wages ' have appeared. Queries on the subject are frequently received ; but as it is extremely wide, correspondents are asked to make their replies as brief as is consistent with clearness. ]

" IN THE LEXICON OF YOUTH THERE IS

NO SUCH WORD AS FAIL." Who was the author of this sentiment ? A variant of i has recently come from the lips of the German Emperor, who is reported to have said, in the course of an address to a Pioneer regi- ment, that soon after he came to the throne a Pioneer officer named Kleist remarked to