2nd s. No 47., Nov. 22. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



401 



LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22. 1856. 



ANGLO-SAXON CHARTERS. 



[We have great pleasure in calling attention to the 

 following communication from Mk. Kemble. When we 

 consider the importance of the documents which he pro- 

 poses to re-edit — their value as materials to national as 

 well as local historj'' — the improved arrangement of those 

 already printed — the proposed addition of no less than 

 sixty new charters, and enlargement of the glossary of 

 words denoting land-divisions as well as the index of 

 local names — We can scarcely doubt that Mr. Kemble 

 will at once receive such assurances of support as will se- 

 cure him from a sacrifice which all must agree that he 

 certainly ought " not to be called upon to make."] 



In answer to the many communications with 

 which I have been favoured, respecting the Codex 

 Diplomaticus JEvi Suxonici, I beg to state, that I 

 am prepared to publish a new and greatly im- 

 proved edition of the work, as soon as I see that 

 this can be done without entailing upon me a sa- 

 crifice which I ought not to be called upon to 

 make. Should my plan be carried into effect, it 

 will comprise the following details. 



An addition of about sixty new documents will 

 be incorporated in the work. The charters 

 hitherto dispersed throughout the volumes will be 

 arranged in their chronological order; but an 

 index will be given, by which the numbers of the 

 old will be identified with those of the new 

 edition. The detached boundaries will he, in 

 every case, appended to the documents to which 

 they belong. All the boundaries, as well as all 

 the charters which are written in Anglo-Saxon, 

 will be translated into English. Regrants and 

 confirmations of charters, where there is no es- 

 sential difference between their text and the older 

 one, will merely be noticed and carried to the 

 general list of documents, but not reprinted ; and 

 similarly, where two or more documents are drawn 

 up in the same words, only one will be printed at 

 length, and the variations of the others noted. 

 The merely forinal words, as Proem and Sanction, 

 of every charter will be omitted, and the date and 

 Teste so arranged as to give all the information 

 which is of any value, combined with the greatest 

 possible economy of space. The glossary of words 

 denoting land-divisions, as well as the index of 

 local names, will be materially enlarged. And to 

 the whole will be appended lists, as complete as 

 they can now be made, of the Anglo-Saxon kings 

 and bishops, with the dates of their accessions 

 and deaths. The work will also comprise a chro- 

 nological table of the principal events of Anglo- 

 Saxon history from the commencement of our 

 written records till the period of the Norman 

 Conquest. By the means adopted to compress 

 the matter within reasonable bounds, I hope to 

 comprise the whole in about two volumes. 



I earnestly beg those gentlemen who have used 

 the Codex Diplomaticus for local purposes, to 

 favour me with such corrections or additions as 

 their knowledge enables them to supply, especially 

 in the list of names of places. John M. Kemble. 



6. Elizabeth Terrace, Westboume Park, 



STRAY NOTES ON EDMUND CURLL, HIS LIFE, AND 

 PUBLICATIONS. 



No. 5. — CurlVs first Appearance at the Bar of the 

 House of Lords. 



The year 1716 had no claims to be marked by 

 Curll with a white stone. It saw his first quarrel 

 with Pope, and witnessed the indignities which he 

 suffered at the hands of the Westminsters. Nor 

 were these the only misfortunes which befel the 

 subject of our Notes in the course of this un- 

 lucky year. In his anxiety to turn a penny he 

 violated an Order of the Lords, and soon came into 

 the clutches of Black Rod. The occasion was this. 



The trial for high treason of the Earl of Win- 

 toun had been brought to a close on Monday, 

 March 19, \^\%. The sentence had been passed, 

 and the Lord High Steward, standing up un- 

 covered and declaring "there was nothing more 

 to be done by virtue of his present commission," 

 had broken his Staff and declai'ed the Commission 

 dissolved. 



On the following Wednesday the House or- 

 dered : 



" That the Proceedings in the Trial of George Earl of 

 Wintoun, upon the Impeachment of High Treason ex- 

 hibited against him by the House of Commons, be printed 

 and published ; and that there be prefixed to the Same, 

 an Account of the several Days or Times when the said 

 Impeachment was brought up, when the said Earl's 

 Answer was put in to the said Impeachment, and when 

 the Commons replied to the said Answer; together with 

 the several Orders, in Course of Time, preparatory to the 

 said Earl's Trial." 



In pursuance of this Order, Mr. Cowper, the 

 then Clerk of the Parliaments, appointed " Jacob 

 Tonson to print the Tryal of George Earl of 

 Wintoun," and did "forbid any other person to 

 print the same." Honest Jacob accordingly issued 

 the trial, in a good handsome form, and at a price 

 corresponding. The public, however, wanted a 

 cheaper report of it, and the public were supplied 

 with one — " An Account of the Tryal of the. Earl 

 of Winton ; which began on the 15th and ended on 

 the I9th of March, 1716," printed in folio and oc- 

 cupying six pages, was " Printed for S. Popping, 

 at the Black Raven in Paternoster Row (Price 

 Tico-pence) y 



This was a violation of the Orders of the House 

 not to be overlooked, and on the 13th of April, 

 " com[)laint being made to the House of a printed 

 paper intituled An Account, &c.," the House or- 

 dered " the Gentleau\n Usher of the Black Rod, 



