Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/464

Rh among the thorn-bushes. The duty was commutable at 20s. per annum.

The cost and value of sundry articles of manufacture, agricultural produce, and domestic animals are shown by the terms at which the fines were assessed. We have mentioned a few instances already. Some tenants of the Earl of Warwick, who were bound to mow his hay and reap his corn, were allowed, after hay harvest, to take the Earl's "best mutton"—that is, sheep—"but one, or xiv&thinsp;d. in money; and after corn-harvest, his "best cheese" but one, or vi&thinsp;d. in money, together with the vat in which the cheese was made, full of salt.

Our list is getting over-long, and yet might be curiously extended. We will finish it, however, by describing one of the most valid tenures or titles which the landed proprietors of those early days could produce for their estates. King Edward I., we are told, having caused inquisition to be made by his justices of certain of his great subjects concerning the warrant on which they held their lands, John Earl Warren and Surrey showed them an old sword, saying: "Behold my warrant! My ancestors, coming into the land with William the Bastard, did obtain their land with the sword; and I am resolved with the sword to defend them against whomsoever shall attempt to dispossess me. For the king did not himself conquer the land and subdue it; but our progenitors were sharers and assistants therein." And "good sharers," adds our author, "were they, for it appears that the first Earl Warren was, at the time of the survey, possessed of two hundred lordships in several counties in England, whereof Coningsburgh in Yorkshire was one, which had twenty-eight towns and hamlets within its soke." Happily, no such accumulation of estated property is now to be found, even in the "Dukery."—Chambers' Journal.

DOOLING vs. BUDGET PUBLISHING COMPANY.

144 Mass. 258.

OD bless us, worthy counsellors!
 * God bless us, gentles all!

A woful dining once there did
 * In Boston town befall.

To tramp the streets with fife and drum,
 * The Ancients took their way;

Long did their gallant stomachs rue
 * The feasting of that day.

For, after grisly war's alarms
 * In many a muddy street,

To brace their martial bodies up,
 * Round festal board they meet.

A specious bill of fare, good sooth!
 * But when they did essay

To actually taste the food,
 * It filled them with dismay.

And false as Judas was the "wine"
 * From tinselled flasks did flow;

No sunny grapes of fair Provence
 * Their juice did there bestow.

And when the grewsome feast was done,
 * The "Pure Havanas" came:

Ah then, God wot! the warriors brave
 * Their bile did straight inflame.