Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/483

 n s. x. DEC. !>, ion] N OTES AND QUERIES.

477

that it varied in size according to the county. At Wimbledon, in Surrey, a yard- land seems to have been only 15 acres, in some parts 20, in some 24, and in others 30 or 40 acres.

Interesting information, both with regard to the etymology of the word and the area it designated, will be found in a paper on 'The Ancient Terms applicable to the Measurement of Land,' published in vol. xvi. of the Transactions of the Surveyors' Insti- tution, from which it appears that an old manuscript of the Abbey of Malmesbury says a yard of land contains 24 acres. In the discussion which followed the reading of the paper referred to, the then President of the Institution said, referring to the case of the manor of Bishopstone, in North Wiltshire :

" The Manor Farm which is in fact the ancient demesne land contained 840 acres. All the rest of the manor, comprising 2,454 acres (being the whole parish except the ancient glebe and allotments in lieu of tithes), except fifteen small homesteads and four pieces of land contain- ing together 9a. 2r. 5p., is divided into 70 yard- lands. There are 31 half yardlands and two quarter yardlands. One holding contains 8J yardlands, and in others numbers vary from two to five, but there are still 22 single yard- lands, intact in one sense, although of course the actual site of the lands comprised in them has been changed by the inclosure."

The late Dr. Frederic Seebohm in ' The English Village Community ' (p. 27, edition 1883) expresses the opinion that the normal area of a " virgate " or yardland was 30 scattered acres, and gives details of the yard- land of John Moldeson in the minor of Winslow. A. C. C.

A yardland is the same as a " virgate," which over a large part of England was the amount of the normal holding of a tenant in

and it is there said that very commonly it is reckoned to contain 30 acres, but both much larger and much smaller numbers are found.

In the statement of the custom of the manor of Wimbledon, Surrey, in ' Watkins on Copyholds,' 4th ed., ii. 555, a yardland in that manor is stated as 15 acres.

BOOKBY.

[MR. A. S. WHITFIELD also thanked for reply.]

'THEOPHANIA' (11 S. x. 347). A refer- ence to this rare seventeenth-century ro- mance suggests to me to put on record that more than half a century ago another work

also now scarce of quite another kind, was published by Richardson (London and Derby) under the same title. The full title is :

" Theophania ; or, a Scriptural View of the Manifestation of the Logos or Pre-existent Messiah, as contra-distinguished from Angelic Personation of the Deity, with which it has been frequently confounded . . . .\Vith supplementary dissertations on relevant subjects. Hy Twinrock Elmricht, Esq."

Our copy of this curious work is a pre- sentation copy from the author, " with sentiments of dutiful respect,' 1 to Bishop John Murdoch, Catholic Vicar-Apostolic of the Western District of Scotland 1833-65. " Twinrock Elmricht " must surely be a nom de guerre. Can any one throw any light on it ?

OSWALD HUNTEB-BLAIR, O.S.B.

Fort Augustus.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED (11 S. x. 429). In Hazlitt's 'English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases ' this distich is given from Fuller's ' Gnomologia : (1732) as follows :

My son is my son till he have got hi n a wife, But my daughter 's my daughter all the day's of her life.

A. COLLINGWOOD LEE. Waltham Abbey.

[MR. THOS. RATCLIFFE and MR. ARCHIBALD SPARKE also thanked for reply.]

THE PURCHASING OF DREAMS (11 S. x. 421). Though not strictly apropos, I am tempted to refer your correspondent and other readers to Thomas Lovell Beddots'.s beautiful lyric entitled 'Dream-Pedlary.' The first two stanzas are as follows : If there were dreams to sell,

What would you buy ? Some cost a passing bell ;

Some a light sigh

That shakes from Life's fresh crown Only a rose-leaf down. If there were dreams to sell, Merry and sad to tell, And the crier rung the bell, What would you buy ?

A cottage lone and still,

With bowers nigh, Shadowy, my woes to still,

Until I die.

Such pearl from Life's fresh crown Fain would I shake me down. \\Vre dreams to have at will,

This would I buy.

I quote from the edition of Beddoes's ' Poems ' edited by Ramsay Colles (" -M Library," Routledge, n.d.), price 1. 6<f.

\\ M. II. PEET.