Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/79

 ii s. iv. JULY 22, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

was at Cambridge in August, 1564, and Don Diego's letter can be found in the Spanish Calendar of State Papers soon after that date. To all appearance, some wag pulled the hidalgo's leg. L. L. K.

"BURSELL" (11 S. iv. 29). This can hardly be other than an unexpected survival of the A.-S. burg-sele, which even in Anglo- Saxon is scarce, and in Middle English seems to be altogether unrecorded. Here burg is " borough " ; and sele means "habitation" or "dwelling-place," being allied to the G. Saal, a room. But sele was also used with reference to slight shelters, as is clear from the compound levesel in Chaucer's ' Reeve's Tale,' Group A, 1. 4061. My note on this word mentions burg-seel (variant of burg-sele}, and explains the sense of levesel very fully. The fact that Widow S tutting was fined only twopence for non- repair of her bursell shows that it was not a structure of very great dimensions. I suggest that her bur-sell or " borough-bower" was merely a shelter or porch before her door, which would be conspicuous, and therefore a thing to be kept in good repair, and at the same time not very expensive to make good. I beg leave to refer to my note to Chaucer's works, vol. v. p. 123, for further illustration.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

Perhaps Katharine Stutting, widow, neglected to keep in good condition the borstal, or uphill way, leading to her house or elsewhere, for which she was answerable. As we do not know when her day was, we cannot calculate the value of the twopence.

ST. SWITHIN.

SERJEANTS' INN : DINNER IN 1839 (11 S. iv. 5). I regret that in my note I carelessly added the words " Fleet Street " to my mention of the remains of the Inn lately destroyed : I should have said Chancery Lane.

There were from first to last three Inns of the legal Serjeants in London.

Scrope's Inn, Holborn, had belonged to Richard, first Lord Scrope of Bolton, and in 1459 to Henry, fourth Lord. After being for a time the Serjeants' Inn, it was restored to the fifth Lord Scrope in 1494.

Serjeants' Inn, on the south side of Fleet Street, was the property of the Dean and Chapter of York, and is said to have been first occupied by Serjeants in the reign of Henry VIII., having previously been a private dwelling. In the course of the

eighteenth century the Serjeants connected with it joined the Chancery Lane Inn, and the hall was taken by the Amicable Assur- ance Society, the rest of the buildings being turned into private houses. The name is still kept up, but the place, though fre- quented by solicitors, is now nothing more than an ordinary square.

The third Inn, namely, that in Chancery Lane, was anciently called Farringdon Inn. About 1414-15 it was acquired as an Inn for judges and Serjeants, and continued to be so used until its final disestablishment. The premises and their contents were sold by auction in 1877, the large sum of money thus raised being divided among the mem- bers of the Society. The building lately demolished was only a remnant of this- former Inn. PHILIP NORMAN.

RICHARD ROLLE'S ' PRICK OF CONSCIENCE ': 'THE BRITISH CRITIC' (US. iii. 227, 277, 377, 417, 458; iv. 11). I have before me, as I write these words, The British Critic? vol. iii. 1794, and its subsidiary title is not " New Series," but, as in the case of all the other volumes up to, and including, vol. xii., "A New Review." MR. MATTHEWS'S state- ment omits the General Index to vols. i.-xx. and to vols. xxi.-xlii. (1793 to 1813), each of which forms a volume.

My " authority " was, certainly, " second- hand," viz., the second-hand catalogue of a firm which shall here be nameless, and which being; human, has, it appears, slightly blundered. This peccant firm includes in its " grand total " The Quarterly Theological Review and Ecclesiastical Record, which,, beginning in December, 1824, completed four volumes by its issue for September,. 1826, and was thenceforward blended with,, and its title appended to that of, its quondam rival The British Critic, as noted in MR. MATTHEWS'S summary. The firm in question also includes in its " set " The Theological Critic (edited by the Rev. T. K. Arnold), which, after an interval of seven years, filled the place left vacant by the defunct British Critic.

If MR. MATTHEWS accepts these addi- tions, his collation will be modified thus : 102+1 + 1 + 4 + 2=110 volumes, and the aforesaid " grand total " will be increased by one volume, and its defining dates altered to 1793-1843 ; 1851-2.

I thank your correspondent who ( 1 1 S. iii. 458) convicts me of having affixed to the name of the Rev. Thomas Mozley an " inapposite titular appendage " ; and in