The description goes on for a few more lines; but it matters not to continue them. I should be much obliged by any of your readers giving an account of who this "ingenious writer" was, and on what authority he founded the foregoing observations, as it is a subject of much interest to me and others at the present time.
ALYTHES.
Jan. 28. 1850.
MINOR QUERIES.
MSS. formerly belonging to Dr. Hugh Todd.—I shall feel most grateful to any of your correspondents who can afford me any information, however imperfect, respecting the MSS. of Dr. Hugh Todd, Vicar of Penrith, and Prebendary of Carlisle, in the beginning of the last century. In the Cat. MSS. Angliæ, &c., 1697, is a catalogue of nineteen MSS, then in his possession, five of which are especially the subject of the present inquiry. One is a Chartulary of the Abbey of Fountains, in 4to; another is an Act Book of the Consistory Court of York, in the fifteenth century, in folio; the third is the Chapter Book of the Collegiate Church of Ripon, from 1452 to 1506; the fourth contains Extracts and Manuscripts from Records relating to the Church of Ripon; and the last is apparently a Book of the Acts of the Benefactors to that foundation. In a letter to Humphrey Lawley, dated in 1713, Dr. Todd says he was engaged in a work relating to the province of York, and the greater part of the MSS. in the catalogue above mentioned appear to have been collected as the materials.
JOHN RICHARD WALBRAN.
Falcroft, Ripon, Jan 31. 1850.
French Leave—In No. 5. I perceive several answers to the query respecting Flemish Account, which I presume to be the same as Dutch Account. Can you inform me how the very common expression French Leave originated?
W.G.B.