148 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Aug. 25. 1855. 



" The Arabian Nights' Entertainments.^^ — Will 

 some one of your readers inform me to whom we 

 are indebted for the excellent English version 

 (that of our schoolboy-days) of these matchless 

 stories ? The Preface shows that it was an in- 

 direct one, being t»ken from a French translation 

 from the Arabic. D. E,. 



Jersey. 



[There nave been so many translations of these popular 

 tales from the year 1724 to the present time, that our 

 correspondent should have given the date of the edition 

 perused by him in his schoolboy-days. An edition in 

 4 vols. I'imo., 1792, published in Edinburgh, and by 

 Messrs. Robinsons, London, was translated by R. Heron. 

 A London edition, 3 vols. 12mo., 1794, is ascribed to Mr. 

 Beloe ; and another, considerably enlarged from the Paris 

 edition, by Richard Gough, in 1798. In 1802 appeared 

 i;he Rev. Edward Forster's translation in 5 vols. 8vo.] 



HISTORICAL ALIiUSIONS. 



(Vol. xl., p. 502.) 



The Catholic Layman had some knowledge of 

 the matters on which he wrote, but his indiffer- 

 ence to chronology is remarkable even in politico- 

 theological controversy. According to him, 

 Wray, Fleming, and Periam " sought the royal 

 favour, and worked upon the royal fears," by 

 taking advantage of the Gunpowder Plot. The 

 Plot was in 1603. Wray died in 1394, and 

 Periam in 1604. Fleming succeeded Periam as 

 Lord Chief Baron in 1604, and Coke as Lord 

 Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1607, which 

 office he held till October 15, 1613, when, as Lord 

 Campbell pleasantly observes, " was spread the 

 joyful news of his death." I cannot find any vio- 

 lence against the Papists recorded of him, beyond 

 that which most judges then felt and all professed. 

 The above dates are from Lord Campbell's Lives 

 of the Chief Justices, and Woolrych's Series of 

 the Lords High Chancellor, Sfc. They are quits 

 near enough for my purpose, and in due time will 

 be settled by Mr. Foss. 



In the reign of Elizabeth nisi prius cases were 

 not so well reported as now. Probably there is 

 some exaggeration in the facts of that known as 

 " Parson Prit's Case," as the plaintiff being in the 

 church when his death was " improved " savours 

 of romance. The case was cited by Coke, ar- 

 guendo, in Crooke v. Montague, Cro. Jac. 91., as 

 ruled by Wray, Ch. J. ; and Popham said it was 

 good law, as the matter was given as a story, and 

 not with intent to defame any. In the following, 

 which is the fullest report I can find, the cause is 

 said to have been tried by Anderson J. : 



^ "In Foxe's Book of Martyrs there is a relation of one 

 Greenwood of Suffolk, who is there reported to have per- 

 jured himself before the Bishop of Norwich, in testifving 

 No. 304.] 



against a martyr in the time of Queen Mary, and that 

 after he came into his house, and there by the judgment 

 of God his bowels rotted out of his belly in exemplary 

 punishment of his perjury; and one Prit, being latelv 

 made the parson of the parish where this Greenwood 

 lived, and not well knowing his parishioners, and preach- 

 ing against perjury, cited this story, and it so happened 

 that Greenwood was alive and in the said church, and 

 after brought action upon the case against the parson, and 

 adjudged to be not maintainable by Anderson at the 

 assizes, because it was not spoke maliciously." — 1 Viner 

 Abr., 540. 



In an anonymous case in the Common Pleas, 

 28 and 29 Eliz., in an action for slander it was 

 laid that the defendant said of the plaintifi", " he 

 hath said many a masse to J. S." 



"Anderson, prima facie, did seem to incline that no 

 action would lie, although that a penaltj^ is given against 

 these masse-mongers. For he said that no action will 

 lie for saying that one has transgressed against a penal 

 l^w."— " Periam, J. Contrary." — " Anderson, Ch. J. If 

 I say to one that he is a discontented subject, no action 

 lieth for the words." — " Pickering. No action lieth for 

 the slandering of one in a thing which is but malum pro- 

 hibitum."— " Periam, J. The saying of masse is malum in 

 se." — Godbolt, 106. 



On such loose foundations the Catholic Layman 

 builds his charges. The practice of treating con-i 

 current events as causes of the rise of statesmen 

 and lawyers, has always prevailed ; and I am in- 

 duced to add another instance from a cotemporary 

 journal, which, though published weekly for some 

 years, is probably less known to the readers of 

 " N. & Q." than Croke and Godbolt. After some 

 hard language to other members of the cabinet, 

 the writer says : 



" Then there is the Lord Chancellor, Baron Rolfe, a 

 tenth-rate lawyer, a man whose sole claim to his present 

 exalted office is a single speech, — that on the trial of 

 James Bloomfield Rush ; and of whom it may be said that 

 if Rush had not been a murderer, Rolfe had not been the 

 chancellor." — Reynolds's Newspaper, Jmie 25, 1853. 



H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



THE RIGHT OP BEQUEATHING LAND. 



(Vol. xi., p. 145.) 



It would be well in replying to this Query to 

 give as briefly as possible an account of the right 

 of alienation of land, step by step, as it became 

 acquired. 



In the commencement of the feudal times the 

 only estate granted was a life-estate ; this system 

 did not long continue, and we find that the hold- 

 ing of lands by feudal tenants soon became here- 

 ditary. At first, it is said, the issue of the tenant 

 only succeeded, collateral relations being excluded ; 

 but, however, we find these latter admitted, in this 

 country, in the time of Henry IL About this 

 time, we gain some light as to the right of alien- 

 ation. Granville tells us that a purchaser pos- 



