452 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[294'S. No 23., Jun 7. 56. 
for raising a military fund (the excise revenues 
proving inadequate for that purpose) was the 
levying a tax of 5 per cent. on all “legacies and 
inheritances.” The new impost met with much 
opposition from the nobles, and it was only on the 
emperor threatening them with a land-tax as a 
substitute, that they succumbed. The speciul 
object of Augustus in creating this new source of 
public revenue was to provide pay for the soldiers, 
rewards for services in the field, and for the ex- 
traordinary expenses of the war : 
“The new imposition,” says Gibbon, “was, however, 
mitigated by some restrictions. It did not take place 
unless the object was of a certain value, most probably of 
fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; nor could it be exacted 
from the nearest of kin on the father’s side. . . . It 
seemed reasonable that a stranger, or a distant relation, 
who acquired an unexpected accession of fortune, should 
cheerfully resign a twentieth of it for the benefit of the 
state.” — See Gibbon, vol. i. pp. 263-4, 
F. Parxorr. 
French Thunder Proverbs. —The following 
thunder prognostics, which have all the merit of 
auguring favourably, may prove an addition to 
your folk lore department ; 
January. “Année abondante. Courte durée du froid.” 
February. “Pronostic d’une bonne récolte.” 
March. “Année prospere.” 
April. “Signe d’une bonne récolte en blé et en vin.” 
May. “Grandes chaleurs. Evénemens heureux,. 
Grande joie.” 
June, “ Vivres x bon marché. Petites pluies.” 
July. “Bonne moisson. Prospérité. Beaucoup de 
fruits.” 
August. “De grandes chaleurs et des pluies régu- 
lieres.” 
September. 
Belle fin d’été.” 
October. ‘Belles vendanges. 
Beau temps.” 
November. “Gréle, frimats. Bien-étre général. Santé 
“Joie et bonheur. Paix universelle. 
Vin de bonne qualité. 
parfaite.” 
December. “Belle fin d’année. Espérances de ri- 
chesses.” 
J. S. Harry. 
Paris. 
Longevity. — 
“Last Thursday, as the nobility and others of dis- 
tinction were passing through Pall Mall in the midst of 
their gaiety to the pallace of St. James’, to pay their 
compliments to his majesty on occasion of his birthday, 
one Elinor Stuart was placed in their way as an object of 
compassion, on account of her great age and misfortunes, 
being 124 years old. She kept a linen shop at Kendal, 
in Westmoreland, in the time of the civil war, and had 
9 children living at the time King Charles I. was be- 
headed, and was undone by adhering to the royall cause. 
The Princess of Wales, seeing her, caused her chair to 
stop, and after talking with her, gave her a generous re- 
lief, and ordered her to come to Leister House for more. 
She is reckoned (Jane Skrimshaw being now dead, who 
was 128) the oldest woman in London.” — News-Letter 
of June 1st, 1724; Bodl. MS. Rawl. C., ¢. i. f. 1418. 
W, D. Macray. 
uertes, 
RAWSONS OF FRYSTON, YORKSHIRE, LONDON, AND 
ESSEX; TRAFFORDS OF ESSEX; ALURED OR 
AVEREY AS A CHRISTIAN NAME; ALVETIILEY, 
ALVELEY, OR AVELEY, ESSEX. 
Notes. — Thomas Rawson, citizen and mercer 
of London, died a.p. 1474, leaving by Joan his 
wife, daughter of Thomas Fyler, Thomas, Mar- 
garet, Amy, Orseley, and a child unborn at his 
death. He left many charitable and devotional 
legacies, and inter alia a legacy for books or orna- 
ments for the churches of Fryston-by-Water, and . 
Castleford, Yorkshire, and appointed his brother, 
Richard Rawson, one of his executors. 
Richard Rawson, citizen and mercer of London, 
was Alderman of Farringdon extra, 14 Ed. IV., 
Sheriff of London 1476, died 1483, and was buried 
at St. Mary Magdalen, Milk Street. By his will 
he also gave many charitable and devotional le- 
gacies, including legacies to the church of Friston, 
and for repairing the highways in and about 
Pomfret, Sherburn, Friston, and Castleforth. 
There were three other brothers, viz. Robert, 
James, and Henry, and three sisters, Elizabeth, 
Katherine, and Ellen. 
Richard Rawson left by his wife, Isabella Traf- 
ford, five sons and three daughters, viz. Averey, 
Christopher, John, Richard, Nicholas, Anne, 
Elizabeth, and Alice. 
Isabella Rawson died in 1497, and was buried 
with her husband at St. Mary Magdalen, Milk 
Street. By her will she gave many charitable 
and deyotional legacies, comprising one to the free 
chapel of Grysenhale, Norfolk, of which her son 
Nicholas was master, and a legacy for amending of 
High noyous and Joypdous (noyous or noxious 
and jeopardous ?) waies between Four Elmes and 
the house of her brother, Thomas Trafford, in 
Essex. She gave a dozen of silyer spoons with 
knoppes to each of her sons, Avery, Christopher, 
John, a Knight of Rhodes, Richard Rawson (then 
at Bononye, query Bologna?); and to her god- 
daughter, Isabella Celey, child of her daughter 
Anne Salle (or Celye), wife of Richard Selye, als 
Cely, merchant of the Staple, who died possessed 
of the manor of Bretts, in Aveley, Essex, in 1494, 
she gave all the halling and bedding of the great 
chamber at Brett's. 
Morant (History of Essex) says that Alured 
Rawson was lord of the manor of Alveley, Essex, 
in 1509. That he had a son, Nicholas, whose 
daughter and heiress, Anne, married the unfortu- 
nate Sir Michael Stanhope, who was the brother~ 
in-law of the Protector Somerset, and fell with 
him, and was beheaded 1552, and by him she was 
ancestress of the Earls of Chesterfield and Stan- 
hope; but a reference to the Court Rolls of Al- 
| veley shows that Nicholas Rawson had freehold 
and copyhold land in the manor of Alveley, but 
