264 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 176. 



que le Portrait est un de ceux qui retrace le plus 

 fidelement les traits de la malheureuse Marie Stuart, 

 mais qu'on a ete jusqu'a I'attribuer au pinceau de 

 Van Dyck. Aussi bon nombre d'amateurs d'outre-mer 

 I'out-ils fait copier dans les derniers temps." 



W. M. K. E. 



BIGBY COKRESrONDENCE. 



(Vol. vii., p. 203.) 



I am a little surprised at the slight knowledge 

 K. K. seems to have of Mr. Rigby— nor do I 

 quite understand his statement : he says he pos- 

 sesses sixty-seven letters of Mr. Rigby to his own 

 grandfather^ and that his object is to discover, 

 what he calls, the counterpart of the correspondence: 

 and then he talks of this counter-correspondent, 

 as if he knew no more of him than that he was 

 an M. P., and "seems" to have done so and so. 

 Now this counter-correspondent must have been 

 his grandfather : and it would surely have sim- 

 plified the inquiry if he had stated at once the 

 name of his grandfather, whose lettei's he is 

 anxious to recover. Mr. Rigby was one of the 

 busiest politicians of the busy times in which he 

 lived. He did not, as K. K. supposes, reside alto- 

 gether in England. He was chief secretary to the 

 Duke of Bedford when Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 

 land, from 1757 to 1761 ; in which period he 

 obtained the lucrative sinecure of Master of the 

 Rolls in Ireland, which he enjoyed for upwards of 

 twenty years ; during which he was a prominent 

 figure in English and Irish politics, and was long 

 the leader of the Bedford party in the English 

 House of Commons. His correspondence would 

 be likely to be, with any one he confided in, im- 

 portant ; and with any body, very amusing : for, 

 though a deep politician, he was of a gay, frank, 

 jovial, and gossiping disposition. It was he who, 

 when some questions were carried against him in 

 the Irish parliament, and that some of his English 

 friends wrote to ask him whether he would not 

 resign on such an affront, concealed his political 

 feelings under the jolly hon-vivant style of answer- 

 ing : " What care I about their affronts ! there is 

 nothing in the world I like half so well as wood- 

 cock-shooting and claret-drinking, and here I have 

 both in perfection : why should I resign ? " He 

 died in 1788 ; and was succeeded in his estate at 

 Mirtley, in Essex, hy Lieut.- Col. Hale Rigby (who, 

 I think, but am not sure, assumed the name of 

 Rigby for the estate), and who had an only 

 daughter who married the late Lord Rivers ; and 

 whose son is now, I presume, the representative 

 of Mr. Rigby — the owner of Mirtley — and pro- 

 bably, if they be in existence, the possessor 

 of the "counter-correspondence" that K. K. 

 inquires after. I have been thus particular in 

 answering, as far as I can, K. K.'s Query, because 



I believe that any confidential correspondence cf 

 Mr. Rigby must be very interesting, and I am 

 glad to suggest where K. K. may look for the 

 "counterpart;" but, whether they be obtained 

 or not, I am inclined to believe that Mr. Rigby's 

 own letters would be worth publication, if, as I 

 have already hinted, his correspondent was really 

 in either his private or political confidence. C, 



A considerable number of this gentleman's let- 

 ters were addressed to his friend and patron, John^ 

 fourth Duke of Bedford, and are among the MSS. 

 at Woburn Abbey. A selection of the most in- 

 teresting are printed in the Bedford Correspond- 

 ence, three vols. 8vo. W. A. 



Richard Rigby, Esq., of Mirtley Hall, in Essex:, 

 was Paymaster-General of the Land Forces from 

 1768 to 1782, when he was succeeded by Edmund 

 Burke. 



Horace Wm. Beckford, the third Baron Rivers, 

 married, in Feb. 1808, Frances, the only daughter 

 of Lieut.-Colonel Frances Hale Rigby, Esq., of 

 Mirtley Hall.* It is therefore probable, that the 

 correspondence and papers referred to by K. K. 

 may be in the possession of the present Lord 

 Rivers. J. B. 



MAKIGMEEII — MELINGLERII — BEEEFELIiARII. 



(Vol. vii., p. 207.) 

 p. C. S. S. has ascertained that all the barbarous 

 terras medievally applied to certain classes of the 

 inferior clergy, and referred to by Mr. Jebb (ante, 

 p. 207.), are explained in the Glossarium of Du- 

 cange. They are identical in meaning and de- 

 rivation, though slightly differing in point of 

 spelling, with " Marigmerii " and " Melinglerii " 

 (cited by Mr. Jebb), " Marellarii," " Meraga- 

 larii," and " Malingrerii," and are all to be found 

 in the learned work to which reference is now 

 made. Of the last of these words, Pirri himself 

 (who is quoted by Mr. Jebb) gives the explan- 

 ation, which is equally applicable to them all.. 

 He says (in Archiepisc. Messan., sub an. 1347) : 



" Malingreriwn, olim dictum qui hodie Sacrista est." 

 Ducange also thus explains the cognate word Mai^- 

 rellarius : 



" iEdituus, custos asdls sacrse, vulgo Marguillier," &c. 

 Mr. Jebb is therefore undoubtedly right in iden- 

 tifying the signification of these terms with that of 

 the French "Marguillier," the Latin phrase for 

 which is Matricularius, so called because those 

 officers were selected from the paupers who were 

 admitted into the Matricula, or hospice adjoining, 

 the church or convent : 



" Ex Matriculariis pauperibus quidam seligebantur 

 ad viliora Ecclesiarum adjacentium munia, v.g. qui 



* See Burke. 



