278 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 102. 



" He smiles on his babes, as some strive for his knee, 

 And some to their motlier's neck cling, 

 ■\Vhile playful the prattlers for place dlsagrea, 

 The roof with their shrill trebles ring. 



VI. 



" I remember the day of my falling in love, 

 How fearful I first came to woo; 

 I hope that these boys will as true-hearted prove, 

 And our lasses, my dear, look like you." 



" Rural Felicity," liowever, though in a purer 

 style than " Wiiiifreda," can liardly be said to 

 rise to poetry at all ; and if the latter had been by 

 the same author, it is most improbable that he 

 would have excluded it irom the volume contain- 

 in"' the former. Looking at the two songs together, 

 one is an evident imitation; and the conclusion I 

 should come to with regard to the other is, that it 

 was written by a man who knew the feeling he 

 describes ; by one of whom it could not be said, 

 " He Las no children ; " by one to whom that 

 more than identity of interest that centres in 

 the — 



" Unselfish self, the filial self of twain," 

 was a familiar feeling. Stevens, perhaps, had re- 

 peated the poem, or made a copy of it, and thus 

 gained the credit of being its author. 



I am surprised that your corresi)ondent T. W. 

 should fiml any dilliculty in the passage he quotes 

 from Childe Harold: 



" Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 

 And many a tyrant (/jas wasted iheni) since." 

 This mode of expression is only faulty when am- 

 biguous ; but here of ambiguity there is none. 



Samuel Hickson. 



THE THREE estates OP THE REALM. 



(Vol. iv., pp. 115. 196.) 



As Caxonicus EnoRACENSis considers that I 

 liave "not exactly hit the mark" in inferring that 

 " the Lords, the Clergy in Convocation, and the 

 Commons" are the " Three Estates of England" 

 named in the Gunpowder Treason Service, I woidd 

 claim, being not yet altogether convinced by 

 Canon. Ebor.'s arguments that such is the case, a 

 share of your space for discussing a question which 

 must certainly be interesting to all who uphold 

 "our Constitution in Church and State." My 

 apology for prolixity must be, that having but ji'st 

 received " Notes and Queries " I liave not had 

 time to study brevity'. 



The passages, which contain the expressions 

 referred to in the Service, are as under: — 



" We yield Thee our unfeigned thanks and praise 

 for the wonderful and mighty deliverance of our gra- 

 cious Sovereign King James the First, the Queen, the 

 Prince, and all the royal branches, witli the Nohility, 

 Chrgy, and Commons of England, then assembled in 



Parliament, by popish treachery appointed as sheep to 

 the slaughter, in a most barbarous and savage manner, 

 beyond the examples of former ages." — The First 

 Collect at Morning Prayer. 



" By discovering and confounding their horrible and 

 wicked enterprise, plotted and intended this day to 

 have been executed against the King and the whole State 

 of England, for tlie subversion of the government and 

 religion established among us." — The Litany. 



"Acknowledging Thy power, wisdom, and goodness in 

 preserving the King, and the Three Estates of the Realm 

 ofEngland, assembled in Parliament, from the destruction 

 this day intended against them." — The Communion 

 Service. 



" AVho on this day didst mlr.iculously preserve our 

 Church and State from the secret contrivance and hellish 

 malice of popish conspirators." — After the Prayer for 

 the Church Militant. 



Canon. Ebor. asserts that these Three Estates 

 (the word "estates" being used of course in its 

 second intention, as meaning the representatives, 

 and not the orders en masse) are " the Lords 

 Spiritual," " the Lords Temporal," and " the 

 Commons," representing severally the clergy, the 

 nobility, and the commonalty. As "the Lords 

 Spiritual" are always placed before "the Lords 

 Temporal," he is obliged to rank the clergy before 

 the nohility in spite of the order of precedency 

 observed in the Collect. This seems to show that 

 the clergy are not represented by the bishops. 

 And in the Coronation Oath they are separately 

 specified ; 



" And will you preserve unto the hishops and tlergy 

 of the realm, and to the churches committed to them, 

 all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall ap- 

 pertain unto them or any of them ? " 



This in an older oath ran thus : 



" Et quil gardera le peas de seynt Egllse et al cler- 

 gie et al people de bon accorde." 



From these quotations it does not seem very 

 faulty to infer, that the clergy as represented by 

 Convocation are the second Estate of the realm ; 

 and are not, as represented by " the Lords Spiri- 

 tual," the first, which is the Estate of the nobility 

 represented by the Peers. 



Against this Canon. Ebor.'s arjunnents are two: 

 first, " that the phrase ' assembled in Parliament 

 has no application to the Convocation;" and next, 

 that the " Convocation does not sit at Westminster." 



With regard to the first, I have to say that it was 

 somewhat late in our history that the point was 

 settled that Convocation was not a part of Par- 

 liament. In Mr. Palin's recently published His- 

 tory of the Church of England, ch. x. p. 242., I 

 read, with respect to the dissolution of the Convo- 

 cation of 1701, — 



" With the presentation of this document the Con- 

 vocation dispersed, both the King and the Prolocutor 

 being now dead ; and in the act that empowered tlie 



