And Macaulay, in his admirable History of England, speaking of the gradual and silent extinction of villenage, then, towards the close of the Tudor period, fast approaching completion, says:
"Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were detected by the curious as late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that institution ever to this hour been abolished by statute."
Tee Bee.
Villenage (Vol. iii., p. 327.).—In reply to the question put by H. C., I beg to say that in Burton's Leicestershire (published in 1622), a copy of which is now before me, some curious remarks occur on this subject. Burton says, under the head of "Houghton-on-the-Hill," that the last case he could find in print, concerning the claim to a villein, was in Mich. 9 & 10 Eliz. (Dyer, 266. b.), where one Butler, Lord of the Manor of Badminton in Gloucestershire, did claim one Crouch for his villein regardant to his said manor, and made an entry upon Crouch's lands in Somersetshire. Upon an answer made by Crouch, an ejectione firmæ was brought in the King's Bench; and upon the evidence it was moved, that as no seizure of the body had been made, or claim set up by the lord, for sixty years preceding, none could then be made. The Court held, in accordance with this, that no seizure could be made. I do not know what the reference means; perhaps some of your legal correspondents may do so.
Jaytee.
MACLEAN NOT JUNIUS.
(Vol. iii., p. 378.)
Your correspondent Ægrotus (antè, p. 378.) is not justified in writing so confidently on a subject respecting which he is so little informed. He is evidently not even aware that the claims of Maclean have been ably and elaborately set forth by Sir David Brewster, and, as I think, conclusively, on the evidence, set aside in the Athenæum. He has, however, been pleased to new vamp some old stories, to which he gives something of novelty by telling them "with a difference." I remember, indeed, four or five years since, to have seen a letter on this subject, written by Mr. Pickering, the bookseller, to the late Sir Harris Nicolas, in which the same statements were made, supported by the same authorities,—which, in fact, corresponded so exactly with the communication of Ægrotus, that I must believe either that your correspondent has seen that letter, or that both writers had their information from a common story-teller.
Respecting the "vellum-bound copy" locked up in the ebony cabinet in possession of the late Marquis of Lansdowne, Mr. Pickering's version came nearer to the authority; for he said, "My informant saw the bound volumes and the cabinet when a boy." The proof then rests on the recollection of an Anonymous, who speaks positively as to what took place nearly half a century since; and this anonymous boy, we are to believe, was already so interested about Junius as to notice the fact at the time, and remember it ever after. Against the probabilities of this we might urge, that the present Marquis—who was born in 1780, and came to the title in 1809, is probably as old, or older than Anonymous; as much interested in a question believed by many persons, Ægrotus amongst them, intimately to concern his father, and quite as precocious, for he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1805—never saw or heard of either the volumes or the cabinet; and, as Ægrotus admits, after a search expressly made by his order, they could not be found. Further, allow me to remind you, that it is not more than six weeks since it was recorded in "Notes and Queries" that a "vellum-bound" Junius was lately sold at Stowe; and it is about two months since I learnt, on the same authority, that a Mr. Cramp had asserted that vellum-bound copies were so common, that the printer must have taken the Junius copy as a pattern; so that, if Ægrotus's facts be admitted, they would prove nothing. There is one circumstance, however, bearing on this question, which perhaps Ægrotus himself will think entitled to some weight. It was not until 1812, when George Woodfall published the private letters of Junius, that the public first heard about "a vellum-bound" copy. If therefore the Anonymous knew before 1809 that some special interest did or would attach more to one vellum-bound book than another, he must be Junius himself; for Sampson Woodfall was dead, and when living had said nothing about it.