Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/65

12 s. ix. JULY is, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 47 mentioned as residing in Rome, viz., Owen Griffin and Thomas ap Griffin. Owen Griffin is probably to be identified with Hugh Griffin (12 S. vi. 86.)

This shows that either the list itself or its transcription is inaccurate. So when we find among the Roman sojourners Wm. Berslock and Ralph Butler, each of whom is described as "D.C.L. and Potentate to the Pope," we need not hesitate to identify them with John Bearblock (11 S. vii. 364) and Thomas Butler (9 S. xi. 227, 350; 11 S. viii. 409: ix. 518). "Potentate to the Pope" appears to mean "Podestà" or Magistrate in the Papal States.

—1. Wife Sales.—Any man could sell his wife for a sum varying from one to three half-crowns; but he must first lead her through three turnpike gates and pay the toll, and that with a rope round her neck. The sale when carried out seems to have been considered quite above reproach. I heard this in my own village, Whitchurch, and was assured the version, was quite correct by the late learned antiquary, Mr. F. Scarlett Potter of Halford, a folklorist of no mean standing.

2. Hanging in Effigy.—A man named Wheatley was hung in effigy on a poplar tree growing on the church land in Ilmington called Crowyard. The effigy was afterwards burnt. It had this rhyme affixed:—

Wheatley was hung in effigy for enclosing part of the common, including the village stocks.

3. Rounding.—This practice was remembered as late as 1855. In South-West Warwickshire, under the old Poor Law the farmer paid half a man's wages if supported by the parish, and the parish paid the other half. Such men were known as yard-land-men, and the proverb "To work like a yard-land-man" was not complimentary.

A man whose regular work through the winter was threshing was called a "tasher." The word died out about 65 years ago and only survives as a surname.

—In No. 37 of The Farmer's Magazine for Friday, Feb. 15, 1833, the following is printed under the title 'Prophecies of Reform.' Is its authorship known?

When a lawyer sheds tears while he's striking a docket, When assessors heave sighs while they empty your pocket, When reviewers feel pangs like the authors they cut up. When conscience for sale shall no longer be put up, When placemen Unmasked throw up sinecures, When any quack medicine performs any cures. When women of eighty confess they're in years, When they make such confession without shedding tears, When poor curates thrive, while fat bishops get skinny, When a note with a shilling is preferred to a guinea, When there's peace, because monarchs are weary of killing, When a good thumping loaf's to be had for a shilling, When like cattle at market base voters ar'nt sold, When tea-scandal ceases, and fish-fags don't scold, When Ale's made again from good malt and hops, When Corn-Jews are found to rejoice at good crops, When truth shall no longer be deemed a foul libel, When men follow precepts preached from the Bible, When symptoms like these shall be seen through the land, They'll seem to portend—"A Reform is at hand."

EPITAPHS MENTIONING* BAY OF THE WEEK (see 12 S. vii. 487). In continuation of my Note I am now able to give the scarce M.I. which mentions the hour of death. It is from the churchyard of Shillingford St. George, near Exeter. Sacred to the memory of John Zeal who de- parted this life the 7th* day of Jany. 1836 at 11 o'clock a.m. and of Christian his wife who departed this life the same day at 7 a.m. aged 75 years. The copy was made and presented, most kindly, by the Rev. S. H. Atkins, rector of Dunchideock-with-Shillingford. M. " AN OMISSION IN MRS. COWDEN CLARKE'S CONCORDANCE " (12 S. vi. 58). Kindly- permit me to draw your correspondent's and perhaps some other reader's kind attention, who may be living far away from England, to a more recent Shakespeare concordance which appeared under the title ' Shakespeare-Lexicon : A Complete Dictionary of all the Words, Phrases, &c., in the Works of Shakespeare,' by Alexander Schmidt, in one vol., 1874-75. However