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hardly have been the child of a marriage that took place in 1794, though she may have been the grandchild. Then it is doubtful if an Englishman could have been at liberty in France in 1794, as that country was then at war with England. Still there may be some truth in the story. M. N. G.

" PILLAGE, STALLAGE, AND TOLL." Vol. xli. (1598-9) of the 'Acta Curia' of the Arch- deacon of Canterbury, now in the Cathedral library at Canterbury, contains the copy of a lease dated 1591, by which the Dean and Chapter granted for nineteen years to Thomas Denwood, of Beakesbourne, the parsonage of Cranbrook in this county. The lease also included :

"And the said Dean and Chapter further gran teth unto the said Thomas Denwood, his exors and assigns, all that their market and fair in Cranbrook aforesaid, and all the other profits and advantages of all the Pillage, Stallage, Toll, and other advan- tages whatsoever appertaining and belonging unto the Dean and Chapter and their successors within the said market and fair."

The rent for the parsonage was to be paid to the auditor " in the treasury." This was behind the Norman chapel of St. Andrew on the north side of the cathedral (see ante, p. 302, ' Paying Kent at a Tomb in Church '). The word pillage in this sense does not appear in any dictionary. ARTHUR HUSSEY.

Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.

SCOTT ON CONSCIENCE. When Scott, under the weight of rapidly failing health, was struggling with * Count Robert of Paris,' he was distressed by the discouraging view taken by his publishers as to the prospects of the book, and on 12 December, 1830, he wrote to Cadell, discussing the situation with characteristic vigour and point. After detailing the nature of his illness and the remedies applied, he continues thus :

" Now, in the midst of all this, I began my work with as much attention as I could ; and having taken pains with my story, I find it is not relished, nor indeed tolerated, by those who have no interest in condemning it, but a strong interest in putting even a face upon their consciences."

In the excellent monograph on Scott which he contributed to the "English Men of Letters " Series Mr. PL. H. Hutton suggested "force" instead of face as the probable read- ing in this reference to the consciences of the publishers. But surely no change is neces- sary. To put a face upon or to mask the conscience is a quite intelligible and very significant expression for Scott's immediate purpose. Those who were virtually col- laborating with him in his herculean task of disentangling himself from the network of

bis responsibilities might have been expected to stand by him, and at least to feign approval if they did not actually feel it. They might have assumed a virtue if they had it not. He was the protagonist in the stupendous conflict ; without him the cause was absolutely hopeless ; and when they found him doing his utmost, however disappointing in quality and destitute of promise that might be, it was to their deepest interest to profess approval and give encouragement, even if in doing so they ran counter to the prompt- ings of conscience. To put a force upon their consciences might conceivably mean essentially the same thing, but the change would make the expression unnecessarily periphrastic and would largely deprive it of its picturesque suggestiveness.

THOMAS BAYNB.

"YCLEPING" THE CHURCH. I copy the

following from the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic of 26 October : "The annual ceremony of ' ycleping,' or, as it is now put, ' clipping' the parish church has just been revived at Painswick in the Cotswolds, where, after being performed for many hundred years, it was discontinued by the late vicar. On the patron saint's day (St. Mary's) the children join hands in a ring round the church and circle round the build- ing, singing. It is the old Saxon custom of 'yclep- ing' or naming the church on the anniversary of its original dedication."

P. J. F. GANTILLON.

EDWARD TRUELOVE. (See ante, p. 411.) MR. DOUGLAS must be mistaken in his im- pression that Mr. Truelove is still alive. He was in many respects a remarkable man, and was in business as a bookseller and publisher at 256, High Holborn, till within a comparatively short period of his death in his ninetieth year. He was buried at Highgate Cemetery on 25 April, 1899. A full account of his career appeared, with a portrait, in the Radical of June, 1887. This paper can doubtless be consulted in the British Museum. W. ROBERTS.

47, Lansdowne Gardens, S.W.

"ELECTROCUTE." Heavens, what a word! The American papers of 29 October inform the world that Czolgosz what a name, too! was "electrocuted " on that day. Of course the horrible word has been coined on a bar- barous analogy with the word " execute," as if the last syllable of that word, "cute," divorced from its connexion and derivation, had any meaning at all, instead of being merely a surd fragment of the complete word, itself formed from exsequor or exequor, to carry out a sentence of death, or to pursue it to its accomplishment.