452 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'»d S. X. Dec. 8. 'oO. 



Apocryphos, fol. Lond. 1660, -which is much esteemed on 

 the Continent. Our correspondent would do well to con- 

 sult more particularlj- Mr. Plumtre's valuable article {sub 

 voce) in Dr. Smith's recently published Didionary o/"i/ie 

 Bible, 8vo. Lond. I860.] 



FEES FOR BAPTISM. 

 (2"^ S. X. 370.) 

 No fee can legally be demanded by any minis- 

 ter of the Established Church for administering 

 the sacrament of baptism, or for registering the 

 same. The sacrament it is his duty to give as a 

 clergyman ; the registration is an act imjwsed upon 

 him by the State. It however frequently happens, 

 among the poor, that the mother is churched at 

 the same time that her infant is baptized. A 

 thank-oiFering is on such occasions made by the 

 mother on account of her safe deliverance " in 

 the great danger of child birth;" and ignorant 

 people frequently think that this is a fee for the 

 baptism. A clergyman has no doubt a right to 

 this offering. The rubric at the end of the ser- 

 vice in the Prayer-book is clear on the point : — 



"The woman that cometh to give her thanks must 

 offer accustomed offerings." 



If, however, it be refused, I do not know any 

 means by which he can compel the payment. 



^ K. P. D. E. 



There is no fee for the rite of baptism : the fee 

 paid is for the registration of it in the parish re- 

 gister, and was a very general demand, insomuch 

 that in a printed proposal (approved by the late 

 Bishop of London) for amending the defects in 

 parish registers and . bishops' transcripts, and sub- 

 mitted to the bishops in 1830, the following was 

 one of the proposed amendments ; — 



"4. It is proposed to abolish all fees for registering 

 baptisftis, it being found in many cases that paj'ment of 

 fees at the time of baptism prevents poor persons from 

 receiving baptism at the hands of their lawful ministers, 

 and causea children to remain nnbaptized." 



The subject of the amendment of the Parish 

 Register Acts seems again to have gone to rest, 

 notwithstanding the bill prepared in 1858, and 

 the kind intentions of a learned peer, who is 

 greatly impressed with the necessity for some le- 

 gislative enactment. John S. Burn. 



I cannot give your correspondent much infor- 

 mation on the subject of his Query beyond the 

 practice of my own parish (near Dublin), which 

 is, neither to ask nor to take any payment what- 

 soever for baptisms ; but having lately secured a 

 curious old MS., comprised in sixteen closely- 

 written 4to. pages, and entitled " The Table of 

 Fees of the Ecclesiasticall Court [of Ireland], and 



y« Table of Tythes" (3rd June, 1662), I wish to 

 send him an extract or two. 



Under the head of baptisms, I find that "at 

 every Xning the minister is to have for y^ 

 cloth [?] and all other duties, 12d.; and the pa- 

 rish elk., 6f/." I likewise find that " at every mar- 

 riage the minister, besides his dinner (for w'^'' he 

 is to take no money, if he refuse it), is to have 

 '12d. ; and y*' parish elk., 6(?. ;" and the same for 

 burials. 



No one, I think, will say that the foregoing 

 charges were exorbitant. Abhba. 



No fee can legally be 'charged for the adminis- 

 tration of the sacrament of baptism, but in very 

 many parishes a fee is customary, which, though 

 nominally paid for the registration of the rite, 

 cannot usually be distinguished by the payers 

 from a fee for the performance of the rite. In 

 a parisli where I officiated for nearly seven years, 

 and baptized some twelve hundred cliildren, the 

 fee was a shilling, but it was considered to be in 

 lieu of a fee for churching, which, according to 

 the rubric, may be charged where customary. 



J. Eastwood. 



BLAXK VERSE. 

 (2"d S. X. 404.) 



With high respect for the opinion of your ac- 

 complished correspondent, Mr. Keightley, I must 

 ask him to forgive me for expressing my doubt 

 of the correctness of his critical dictum, that "in 

 Shakspeare " (with a single exception) " there is 

 not a line of prose." Much more probable, as it 

 appears to me, is the conjecture of another contri- 

 butor to " N. & Q." [see a paper by J. R., 2"" S. 

 vi. 139., Aug. 28, '58], that " Shakspeare often 

 wrote in involuntary metre, when he intended his 

 minor characters to speak in prose." 



Having no books of reference at hand, I will 

 take in support of my objection your correspon- 

 dent's own example — Malvolio's letter. Most 

 certainly I "recognise the presence of metre" 

 there ; but, if Mr, Keightley wishes his readers 

 to conclude, from that fact alone, that Shakspeare 

 actually intended these halting blank-verses for a 

 metrical epistle, I can only say that, upon the same 

 principle, I should have no difficulty in proving 

 that in his own paper in " N. & Q." " there is not 

 a word of prose." 



Indeed, by way of a practical refutation of the 

 theory, and to show how easily any writer may 

 fall into the trick of involuntary metre, especially 

 blank verse, I have taken the liberty of arranging 

 metrically the last paragrapli of your correspon- 

 dent's own letter, and without altering, or omit- 

 ting a single syllable, I discover a dozen lines^ of 

 good blank verse. One line only (the 5th), which 



