"Hâc Ecclesiæ contra ipsam sententiâ, et Catholicorum novis incrementis quotidianis, non mediocriter offensa Elizabetha, convocatis ordinibus, leges valde iracundas et cruentas contra veteris fidei cultores promulgat: quibus primum cavetur, ne quis Elizabetham hæreticam, schismaticam, infidelem, usurpatricemve, sub pœnâ capitis vocet. Item. Ne quis aliam quamcunque certam personam nominet, cui regnum vel in vitâ, vel post mortem ipsius, deberi dicatur, exceptâ Elizabethæ naturali prole. Ea enim sunt ipsa decreti verba. In eam enim homines vel adulationem vel necessitatem ita perduxit hæresis, ut quod illud nobilissimum regnum illegitimæ illius regis sui proli ægre unquam concessit, nunc naturali, id est, spuriæ, soboli reginæ in cujus sexu fornicationis peccatum est fœdius, non denegarint: pariter et reipublicæ, ex proximi successoris ignoratione, extremum periculum, et Elizabethæ incontinentiam prodentes."—Nicolai Sanderi Hist. Schism. Angl. lib. iii. § Novæ leges latæ in Catholicos, ann. 1571, ed. 8vo. Col. Agr. 1628, p. 299.
To some of your readers this passage may seem to indicate that the use of the equivocal word naturali may have given colour, not to say occasion, to the whole scandal against Queen Elizabeth. By many, I apprehend, it will be acknowledged that spuriæ is not the only, if an allowable, interpretation.
J. SANSOM.
Oxford, July 22. 1851.
Meaning of "Deal" (Vol. iv., p. 88.).
—I think the following may help to throw a little light upon the use of the word deal as meaning divide. I was in Wensleydale about a month ago; and on inquiring where the boundary between the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire ran, was told, "On the top of Penhill, where God's water deals" (i. e. the rain divides). I may further add, on my own knowledge, that in the north-west corner of Suffolk, where the country is almost entirely open, the boundaries of the different parishes are marked by earthen mounds, from three to six feet high, which are known in the neighbourhood as dools the word being probably derived from the same root. I have been told, however, that it should be spelled duals, and that the derivation of it was from the Latin duo as marking two parishes; but I am sure that it is always pronounced by the country-people at a monosyllable, and therefore the chances are in favour of the former derivation being the right one.
A propos to Suffolk, another of your correspondents (Vol. iv., p. 55) lately mentioned the fashion the people there have of leaving out the ve in the middle of the names of places. In this I can bear him witness also; but I do not think it is confined to those letters only: e. g. Eriswell, pronounced Asel; Wymondham (in Norfolk) Wyndham, &c. Among those names of places in which the ve is left out, your correspondent has omitted Elveden (commonly, though erroneously, Elvedon), which is always called and often spelled Elden.
A. N.
"The Worm in the Bud," &c. (Vol. iv., p. 86.).
—This quotation is from Cowper's lines appended to the Bill of Mortality for the parish of All Saints, Northampton, for 1787: