2»dS. N<>o2., Deo. 27. '56.]" 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



509 



Wagessum. — Vice Chancellor Wood, in giving 

 judgment in Alston v. Tilbury Railway Co., last 

 week, stated tliat he had made search, but could 

 not .find any means of ascertaining what was the 

 correct intei-pretation of this word. It was used 

 in an old grant produced, of right to the sea- 

 shore and oyster grounds, .&c. Can any readers 

 .of " N. & Q," thro.w light on it ? 



A. Holt White. 



Rtiffhead's " Pope," with Warbarton's Notes. — 

 Will the present possessor of Ruffhead's Life of 

 Pope., with Bp. Warburton's IVIS. Notes, kindly 

 communicate his name and address to the Rbv. 

 p. KiLVEET, Clavei-ton Loflge, Bath ,? 



St. Vedast alias Foster. — - Can any of youir nu- 

 merous readers inform me whiSt (!onnexion there 

 is between the word Vedast, or a saint of that 

 name, and the more modern cognomen of I^o&ter ? 

 In old deeds they are used as synonymous. 



T. B. S. 



JBridport. 



[We may as well give the conjecture' quoted by New- 

 court in bis' Repertori urn, although it is not very satis- 

 factory: "The parish church of St. Vedast is sometimes 

 called St. Foster's, though by the way Mr. R. Smith, in 

 his fore-cited manuscript, saith, that he finds not in any 

 author the name of St. Foster given to any saint, there- 

 fore rather conceives that it was first given, either from 

 the street where situate, or from some eminent man there 

 dwelling, perhaps, if not the founder, yet some special 

 benefactor to this church or place." Alban Butler, in his 

 Lives of the Saints, comes nearer the mark. " Our an- 

 cestors," he says, "had a particular devotion to St. Ve- 

 dast, whom they called St. Foster, whence descends the 

 family name of Foster, as Camden takes notice in his 

 MemaiTis."'] 



faker's " Chronicle." — Can any of your nume- 

 rous readers tell me the value of this as a work of 

 historical reference ? and whether the abridged 

 and amended edition of 1730 is superior to those 

 that preceded it ? Herbert. 



[ No writer, perhaps, has received * greater amount of 

 ridicule than this worthy knight.; and that, 'toQ, in spite 

 ifitf the panegyric of his own Chronicle, " that it is collected 

 with so great care and diligence, that if all other of our 

 Chronicles were lost, this only would be sufficient to 

 inform posterity of all passages memorable, or worthy to 

 be known." Sir Roger de Coverley, as is well known, so 

 highly estimated it, that itiformed part of the furniture in 

 the hall of hiscountrj'-seat ; and his visit to Westminster 

 Abbey afforded him an opportunity of doing justice to 

 Sir Richard, although he observed with some surprise, 

 ithat "he had a great many kings in him whose monu- 

 ments lie had not seen in the Abb&j' ! " Addison's hu- 

 mour was not forgotten by Fielding when writing his 

 Joseph Andrews . ".Joey told Mr. Abraham Adams that 

 ever .since he was in Sir Thomas Booby's family, he had 

 employed all his hours of leisure in reading good books; 

 and that as often as he could, without being perceived, he 

 liad-Btudied a great good -book wluch lay open ia the iiall 



window, (where he had read as how the devil had carried 

 away half a church in sermon time, without hurting one 

 of the congregation ; and as how a field of corn run down 

 a hill with all the trees upon it, and covered another 

 man's meadow. This sufficiently assured Mr. Adams that 

 the great book meant could be no other than Baker's 

 Chronicle!" Anthony b, Wood, however, "to save the 

 bacon " of this .pious knight, at3'les him " a noted writer," 

 and .endeavours to inspire his readers with a reverence for 

 his character. The late Daines Barriugton, too, is found 

 among his apDlogists. " Baker," says he, " is by no 

 means so contemptible a writer as he is generally sup- 

 posed to be; it is believed that the ridicule on this 

 Chronicle arises from its being part of the furniture of Sir 

 Roger de Coverley's hall." On the other hand, those 

 matter-of-fact bibliopolists. Bishop Nicol.son and Dr. 

 Dibdin, condemn it as "a ijimsj' performance," and "fit 

 only to please the rabble." The edition of 1730 and 1733, 

 which seem to be one and the same, excepting a fresh 

 title to the latter, was edited by Edward Phillips, the 

 nephew of Milton, and is considered by the booksellers as 

 the edido princeps ; though the earlier ones, particularly 

 that of 1641, contain many curious documents omitted by 

 Phillips.] 



Sinfi^idar Tenure. — I was wbiiing a leisure hour 

 the other evening in looking over Camden's Bri- 

 tannia, when I met with the following curious 

 paragraph under " 'Suffolk : " 



" Hemingston in qua tenuit terras Baldwinus, le'P^tenr 

 (notato mihi nomen), per Seriantiam (loqnor ex antiquo 

 libello), pro qua debuit facere die natali Domini singulis 

 annis, coram Domino Rege Anglia;, unum saltuih, unimi 

 ButBetum, et unum bumbulum ; vel ut alibi legitur, per 

 saltum, sufHum, et pettum," &c. — Britannia, Gulielmo 

 Camdeno, Londini, 1607, p. 837., folio. 



■Camden is so grave a writer that, .extraordinary 

 as such a custom appears to be, he had, I have no 

 doubt, his authority for what he states. 2. 



[This ludicrous tenure is quoted from Placita CororuB, 

 17 Edward I. rot. 6., dorso Suffolk. See also Blount's 

 Ancient Tenures, by Beckwith, p. 60.] 



HepUe^. 



SWITT, PORTRAIT OF, AND EDIT. OF 1734. 



(2°'* S. ii. 21. 96. 158. 199. 254.) 



Absence from home has prevented me replying 

 sooner to the communications of C. and P. O. S. 



The volume of Dean Swift's Works noticed by 

 me does >not a|)pear to coincide with the page 

 references given me by P. O. S., nor with the 

 book-plate in the "name Vert" being found on it; 

 but as further discussion is not likely to settle 

 this .q.uestion, at the request of P. 0. S. (p. 199.), 

 the volume is transmitted to the Editor of " N. 

 & Q." for his examination, who, I have no doubt, 

 will be so kind as to pass his opinion on the whole 

 subject. I may be permitted to say to C, that, 

 whether in error or not, I had no design to blow 

 " bubbles," nor of imposing in any way on the con- 

 tributors to "IST. & Q,.," in such statements as I 

 made, TOy object having been entirely to elicit a 



