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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[2a S. N" 23., JUKE 7. '56,

for raising a military fund (the excise revenues proving inadequate for that purpose) was the levying a tax of 5 per cent, on all " legacies and inheritances." The new impost met with much opposition from the nobles, and it was only on the emperor threatening them with a land-tax as a substitute, that they succumbed. The special object of Augustus in creating this new source of public revenue was to provide pay for the soldiers, rewards for services in the field, and for the ex? traordinary expenses of the war :

" The new imposition," says Gibbon, " was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold ; nor could it be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father's side. ... It seemed reasonable that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a twentieth of it for the benefit of the state," See Gibbon, vol. i. pp. 263-4.

F. PHILLOTT.

French Thunder Proverbs. The following thunder prognostics, which have all the merit of auguring favourably, may prove an addition to your folk lore department :

January. " Annee abondante. Courte dure'e du froid."

February. " Pronostic d'une bonne recolte."

March. " Anne prospere."

April. " Signe d'une bonne recolte en ble' et en vin."

May. "Grandes chaleurs. Evenemens heureux. Grande joie."

June. " Vivres & bon marche". Petites pluies."

July. "Bonne moisson. Prospe'rite. Beaucoup de fruits."

August. " De grandes chaleurs et des pluies re'gu- lieres."

September. "Joie et bonheur. Paix universelle. Belle fin d'e'te."

October. "Belles vendanges. Vin de bonne qualit^. Beau temps."

November. " Grele, frimats. Bien-etre gene'ral. Sante' parfaite."

December. "Belle fin d'ann^e. Esperances de ri-

J. S. HARRY.

Paris. Longevity.

"Last Thursday, as the nobility and others of dis- tinction were passing through Pall Mall in the midst of their gaiety to the pallace of St. James', to pay their compliments to his majesty on occasion of his birthday, one Elinor Stuart was placed in their way as an object of compassion, on account of her great age and misfortunes, being 124 years old. She kept a linen shop at Kendal, in Westmoreland, in the time of the civil war, and had 9 children living at the time King Charles I. was be- headed, and was undone by adhering to the royall cause. The Princess of Wales, seeing her, caused her chair to stop, and after talking with her, gave her a generous re- lief, and ordered her to come to Leister House for more. She is reckoned (Jane Skrimshaw being now dead, who was 128) the oldest woman in London." News-Letter of June 1st, 1724; Bodl, MS. Bawl. C., c. i. f. 141 b.

W. D. MACRAY.

RAWSONS OF FRYSTON, YORKSHIRE, LONDON, AND ESSEX ; TRAFFORDS OF ESSEX ; ALURED OR AVEREY AS A CHRISTIAN NAME J ALVET1LLEY, ALVELEY, OR AVELEY, ESSEX.

Notes. Thomas Rawson, citizen and mercer of London, died A.D. 1474, leaving by Joan his wife, daughter of Thomas Fyler, Thomas, Mar- garet, Amy, Orseley, and a child unborn at his death. He left many charitable and devotional legacies, and inter alia a legacy for books or orna- ments for the churches of Fryston-by- Water, and Castleford, Yorkshire, and appointed his brother, Richard Rawson, one of his executors.

Richard Rawson, citizen and mercer of London, was Alderman of Farringdon extra, 14 Ed. IV., Sheriff of London 1476, died 1483, and was buried at St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street. By his will be also_ gave many charitable and devotional le- gacies, including legacies to the church of Friston, and for repairing the highways in and about Pomfret, Sherburn, Friston, and Castleforth.

There were three other brothers, viz. Robert, James, ^ and Henry, and three sisters, Elizabeth, Kafherine, and Ellen.

Richard Rawson left by his wife, Isabella Traf- ford, five sons and three daughters, viz. Averey, Christopher, John, Richard, Nicholas, Anne, Elizabeth, and Alice.

Isabella Rawson died in 1497, and was buried with her husband at St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street. By her will she gave many charitable and devotional legacies, comprising one to the free chapel of Grysenhale, Norfolk, of which her son Nicholas was master, and a legacy for amending of High noyous and Joypdous (noyous or noxious and jeopardous ?) waies between Four Elmes and the house of her brother, Thomas Trafford, in Essex. She gave a dozen of silver spoons with knoppes to each of her sons, Avery, Christopher, John, a Knight of Rhodes, Richard Rawson (then at Bononye, query Bologna ?) ; and to her god- daughter, Isabella Celey, child of her daughter Anne Salle (or Celye), wife of Richard Selye, als Cely, merchant of the Staple, who died possessed of the manor of Bretts, in Aveley, Essex, in 1494, she gave all the hailing and bedding of the great chamber at Brett's.

Morant (History of Essex) says that Alured Rawson was lord of the manor of Alveley, Essex, in 1509. That he had a son, Nicholas, whose daughter and heiress, Anne, married the unfortu- nsite Sir Michael Stanhope, who was the brother- in-law of the Protector Somerset, and fell with him, and was beheaded 1552, and by him she was ancestress of the Earls of Chesterfield and Stan- hope ; but a reference to the Court Rolls of Al- veley shows that Nicholas Rawson had freehold and copyhold land in the manor of Alveley, but