In reference to the observations of your correspondent "E.R.J.H.," he will find, upon closer examination, that no comparison approaching to accuracy can be made between the population of any place at different periods of the seventeenth century, founded upon the entries in parish registers of baptisms, births, or marriages. In 1653 the ecclesiastical registers ceased to contain much of the information they had before given. In that year was passed, "An Act how Marriages shall be solemnised and registered, and also for a Register of Births and Burials;" which first introduced registers of births and not of baptisms. The Act treated marriage as a civil contract, to be solemnised before a justice of the peace; and it directed that, for the entry of all marriages, and "of all births of children, and burial of all sorts of people, within every parish," the rated inhabitants should choose "an honest and able person to be called 'The Parish Register,'" sworn before and approved by a neighbouring magistrate. Until after the Restoration, this Act was found practicable; and in many parishes these books (distinct from the clergyman's register of baptisms, &c., celebrated in the church) continue to be fairly preserved. In such parishes, and in no others, a correct comparative estimate of the population may be formed.
The value of the parochial registers for statistical and historical purposes cannot be overrated; and yet their great loss in very recent times is beyond all doubt. It was given in evidence before the committee on registration, that out of seventy or eighty parishes for which Bridges made collections a century since, thirteen of the old registers have been lost, and three accidentally burnt. On a comparison of the dates of the Sussex registers, seen by Sir W. Burrell between 1770 and 1780, and of those returned as the earliest in the population returns of 1831, the old registers, in no less than twenty-nine parishes, had in the interval disappeared; whilst, during the same half-century, nineteen old registers had found their way back to the proper repository. On searching the MSS. in Skelton Castle, in Cleveland, a few years since, the first register of that parish was discovered, and has been restored.
These changes show how great the danger is to which the old registers are exposed; and in many instances it saves time and trouble to search the Bishop's transcripts before searching the original registers.
WM. DURRANT COOPER.
81. Guildford Street, March 25. 1850.
BYRON'S LARA.
I cannot agree with your able corespondent "C.B." (No. 20. p. 324., and No. 17. p. 262.), that Ezzelin in "Lara" is Seyd of the "Corsair." My interpretation of both tales is as follows:—Lara and Ezzelin both lived in youth where they afterwards met, viz. in a midland county of England—time about the fourteenth century. Ezzelin was a kinsman, or, more probably, a lover of Medora, whom Lara induced to fly with him, and who shared his corsair life. When Lara had returned home, the midnight scene in the gallery arose from some Frankenstein creation of his own bad conscience; a "horrible shadow," an "unreal mockery." Kaled was Gulnare disguised as a page; and when Lara met Ezzelin at Otho's house, Ezzelin's indignation arose from his recollection of Medora's abduction. Otho favours Ezzelin in this quarrel; and, when Kaled looks down upon the "sudden strife," and becomes deeply moved, her agitation was from seeing in Ezzelin the champion of Medora, her own rival in the affections of Lara. Ezzelin is murdered, probably by the contrivance of Kaled, who had before shown that she could lend a hand in such an affair. After this, Lara collects a band, like what David gathered to himself in the cave of Adullam, and what follows suits the mediæval period of English history.
I will briefly quote in support of this view. Otho shows that Lara and Ezzelin had both sprung from one spot, when he says,
"I pledge myself for thee, as not unknown,