Mat 24. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



411 



the bench, it was pleaded " that villenage, or 

 slavery, had been permitted in England by the 

 common law ; that no statute had ever passed to 

 abolish this status;" and that "although de facto 

 villenage by birth had ceased, a man might still 

 make himself a villein by acknowledgment in a 

 court of record." This was in the celebrated case 

 of the negro Somersett, in which Lord Mansfield 

 first established that " the air of England had 

 long been too pure for a slave." In his judgment 

 he says, — 



" Then what ground is there for saying that 



the status of slavery is now recognised by the law of 

 England? .... At any rate, villenage has ceased in 

 England, and it cannot be revived." — St. Tr., vol. xx. 

 pp. 1-82. 



And Macaulay, in his admirable History of 

 England, speaking of the gradual and silent ex- 

 tinction of villenage, then, towards the close of the 

 Tudor period, fast approaching completion, says : 



" Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were 

 detected by the curious as late as the days of the 

 Stuarts; nor has that institution ever to this hour been 

 abolished by statute." 



Tee Bee. 



Villenage (Vol. iii., p. 327.). — In reply to the 

 question put by H. C, I beg to say that in Bur- 

 ton's Leicestershire (published in 1622), a copy of 

 which is now before me, some curious remarks 

 occur on this subject. Burton says, under the 

 head of " Houghton-on-the-Hill," that the last 

 case he could find in print, concerning the claim 

 to a villein, was in Mich. 9 & 10 Eliz. {Dyer, 

 266. b.), where one Butler, Lord of the Manor of 

 Badminton in Gloucestershire, did claim one 

 Crouch for his villein regardant to his said manor, 

 itnd made an entry upon Crouch's lands in Somer- 

 setshire. Upon an answer made by Crouch, an 

 ejectione firmce was brought in the King's Bench ; 

 and upon the evidence it was moved, that as no 

 seizure of the body had been made, or claim set 

 up by the lord, for sixty years preceding, none 

 could then be made. The Court held, in accord- 

 ance with this, that no seizure coulil be made. I 

 do not know what the re/'erence means ; perhaps 

 some of your legal correspondents may do so. 



Jaytee. 



MACLEAN NOT JUNIUS. 



(Vol. iii., p. 378.) 

 Your correspondent yEaaoTUS {ante, p. 378.) 

 is not justified in writing so confidently on a 

 subject respecting whicii he is so little informed. 

 He is evidently not even aware that the claims 

 of Maclean have been ably and elaborately set 

 forth by Sir David Brewster, and, as I think, 

 conclusively, on the evidence, set aside in the 

 AlhencEwn. He has, iiowevcr, been pleased to 

 new vamp some old stories, to which he gives 



something of novelty by telling them " with a dif- 

 ference." I remember, indeed, four or five years 

 since, to have seen a letter on this subject, 

 written by Mr. Pickering, the bookseller, to 

 the late Sir Harris Nicolas, in which the same 

 statements were made, supported by the same 

 authorities, — which, in fact, corresponded so 

 exactly with the communication of ^grotus, that 

 I must believe either that your correspondent has 

 seen that letter, or tliat both writers had their in- 

 formation from a common story-teller. 



Respecting the " vellum-bound copy" locked up 

 in the ebony cabinet in possession of the late 

 Marquis of Lansdowne, Mr. Pickering's version 

 came nearer to the authority ; for he said, " My 

 informant saw the bound volumes and the cabinet 

 when a boy." The proof then rests on the recol- 

 lection of an Anonymous, who speaks positively as 

 to what took place nearly half a century since; and 

 this anonymous boy, we are to believe, was already 

 so interested about Junius as to notice the fact at 

 tlie time, and remember it ever after. Against the 

 probabilities of this we might urge, that the pre- 

 sent Marquis — who was born in 1780, and came to 

 the title in 1809, is probably as old, or older than 

 Anonymous; as much interested in a question 

 believed by many persons, .32grotus amongst 

 them, intimately to concern his father, and quite 

 as precocious, for he was Chancellor of the Exche- 

 quer in 1805 — never saw or heard of either the 

 volumes or the cabinet ; and, as iEcRoxus admits, 

 after a search expressly made by his ordei% they 

 could not be found. Further, allow me to remind 

 you, that it is not more than six weeks since it was 

 recorded in " Notes and Queries" that a " vel- 

 lum-bound" Junius was lately sold at Stowe; and 

 it is about two months since 1 learnt, on the same 

 authority, that a Mr. Cramp had asserted that 

 vellum-bound copies were so common, that the 

 printer must have taken the Junius copy as a 

 pattern ; so that, if iEcKoxus's facts be admitted, 

 they would prove nothing. There is one circum- 

 stance, however, bearing on this question, which 

 perhaps ^grotus himself will think entitled to 

 some weight. It was not until 1812, when George 

 Woodfall published the private letters of Junius, 

 that the public first heard about " a vellum- 

 bound" copy. If therefore the Anonymous knew 

 before 1809 that some special interest did or would 

 attach more to one vellum-bound book than 

 another, he must be Junius himself; for Sampson 

 Woodfall was dead, and when living had said 

 nothing about it. 



iEcROTUs then favours us with tlie anecdote 

 about "old Mr. Co.x" the printer, and that Mac- 

 lean corrected the proofs of Junius' Lettei-s at his 

 printlng-oflice. Of course, persons acquainted 

 with the subject have heard the story before, 

 though not with all the circumstantialities now 

 given. Where, I might ask, is tlie authority for 



