Shakspeare's Inheritance (Vol. ix., pp. 75. 154.).—Probably the following extracts from Littleton's Tenures in English, lately perused and amended (1656), may tend to a right understanding of the meaning of inheritance and purchase—if so, you may print them:
"Tenant in fee simple is he which hath lands or tenement to hold to him and his heires for ever: and it is called in Latine feodum simplex; for feodum is called inheritance, and simplex as much to say as lawful or pure, and so feodum simplex is as much to say as lawfull or pure inheritance. For if a man will purchase lands or tenements in fee simple, it behoveth him to have these words in his purchase, To have and to hold unto him and to his heires: for these words (his heires) make the estate of inheritance, Anno 10 Henrici 6. fol. 38.; for if any man purchase lands in these words, To have and to hold to him for ever, or by such words, To have and to hold to him and to his assigns for ever; in these two cases he hath none estate but for terme of life; for that, that he lacketh these words (his heires), which words only make the estate of inheritance in all feoffements and grants."
"And it is to be understood that this word (inheritance) is not only understood where a man hath lands or tenements by descent of heritage, but also every fee simple or fee taile that a man hath by his purchase, may be said inheritance; for that, thus his heires may inherite them. For in a Writ of Right that a man bringeth of land that was of his own purchase, the writ shall say, Quam clamat esse jus et hæreditatem suam, this is to say, which he claimeth to be his right and his inheritance."
"Also purchase is called the possession of lands or tenements that a man hath by his deed or by his agreement, unto which possession he commeth, not by descent of any of his ancestors or of his cosins, but by his own deed."
J. Bell.
Cranbroke, Kent.
Cassock (Vol. ix., pp. 101. 337.).—A note in Whalley's edition of Ben Jonson has the following remark on this word:
"Cassock, in the sense it is here used, is not to be met with in our common dictionaries: it signifies a soldier's loose outward coat, and is taken in that acceptation by the writers of Jonson's times. Thus Shakspeare, in All's Well that Ends Well:
'Half of the which dare not shake the snow from their cassocks.'"
This is confirmed in the passage of Jonson, on which the above is a note.
"This small service will bring him clean out of love with the soldier. He will never come within the sign of it, the sight of a cassock."—Every Man in his Humour, Act II. Sc. 5.
The cassock, as well as the gown and band, seem to have been the usual attire of the clergy on all occasions in the last century, as we find from the paintings of Hogarth and the writings of Fielding, &c. When did this custom cease? Can any reader of "N. & Q." supply traditional proof of clergymen appearing thus apparelled in ordinary life?