J.B.
[If our correspondent refers to the glossary in the second vol. of Mr. Thorpe's admirable edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws, which he edited for the Record Commission under the title of Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, he will find s.v. "Ciric-Sceat—Primitiæ Seminum church-scot or shot, an ecclesiastical due payable on the day of St. Martin, consisting chiefly of corn;" a satisfactory answer to his Query, and a reference to this very passage from Canute.]
Welsh Language.—Perhaps some of your correspondents would favour me with a list of the best books treating on the Welsh literature and language; specifying the best grammar and dictionary.
JARLTZBERG.
Armenian Language.—This copious and widely-circulated language is known to but few in this country. If this meets the eye of one who is acquainted with it, will he kindly direct me whither I may find notices of it and its literature? Father Aucher's Grammar, Armenian and English (Venice, 1819), is rather meagre in its details. I have heard it stated, I know not on what authority, that Lord Byron composed the English part of this grammar. This grammar contains the two Apocryphal Epistles found in the Armenian Bible, of the Corinthians to St. Paul, and St. Paul to the Corinthians. Like the Greek and German, "the different modes of producing compound epithets and words are the treasure and ornament of the Armenian language; a thousand varieties of compounded words may be made in this tongue," p. 10. I believe we have no other grammar of this language in English.
JARLTZBERG
REPLIES
A TREATISE ON EQUIVOCATION.
My attention has recently been drawn to the inquiry of J.M. (Vol. i., p. 260.) respecting the work bearing this name. He inquires, "Was the book ever extant in MS. or print? What is its size, date, and extent?" These questions may in part be answered by the following extracts from Parsons's Treatise tending to Mitigation, 1607, to which J.M. refers as containing, "perhaps, all the substance of the Roman equivocation," &c. It appears from these extracts that the treatise was circulated in MS.; that it consisted of ten chapters, and was on eight or nine sheets of paper. If Parsons' statements are true, he, who was then at Douay, or elsewhere out of England, had not seen it till three years after it was referred to publicly by Sir E. Coke, in 1604. Should the description aid in discovering the tract in any library, it may in answering J.M.'s second Query, "Is it now extant, and where?"