2nd. For what purpose were they anciently used?
3rd. Are they common in other counties besides Suffolk?
Also: What is the origin of the Friday Streets so common in most villages in this neighbourhood?
A SUBSCRIBER AB INITIO.
Guildhall, Framlingham, Suffolk, Feb. 6. 1850.
Vox Populi—Monody on Sir John Moore.—Can any reader give me the origin of the saying "Vox Populi, Vox Dei?"—and has any one of your correspondents ever heard of any doubts being raised as to the original author of the Monody upon Sir John Moore, which is now always assigned to the Rev. Dr. Wolfe? I saw it stated in an English paper, published in France some few years back, that Wolfe had taken them from a poem at the end of the Memoirs of Lally Tottendal, the French governor of Pondicherry, in 1756, and subsequently executed in 1766. In the Paper I refer to, the French poem was given; and certainly one of the two must be a translation of the other. I have not been able to get a copy of Tottendal's Memoirs, or of the Paper I refer to, or I would not trouble you with this Query; but perhaps some one can inform me which is the Merchant here, and which the Jew.
QUÆSITOR.
Reg. Coll. London.
Use of Coffins.—How long has it been the custom to inter the dead in coffins? "In a table of Dutyes" dated 11th Dec. 1664, and preserved at Shoreditch Church, it is mentioned:—
"For a buryall in the New Church Yard without a coffin, 00 00 08.
"For a buryall in ye Old Church Yard without a coffin seauen pence 00 00 07.
"For the grave marking and attendance of ye Vicar and Clarke on ye enterment of a corps uncoffined the churchwardens to pay the ordinary duteys (and no more) of this table."