FOOTNOTES
[1a] Cunningham’s Hand Book of London, 1850, p. 369. The Marylebone Borough Almanack, 1853.
[1b] Environs of London, vol. iii. p. 329. This error is repeated in Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary and seems to have been copied by all subsequent authors. And although Lysons is generally accurate, we shall find this is not the only error he has made respecting this manor.
[1c] Archæologia, vol. 26, p. 231.
[2a] Dart’s History of Westminster Abbey, vol. 1. p. 11.—“Westmonasterium.”
[2b] Peter-Pence, or Rome-fee.
[2c] Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i. p. 266.
[3] “An History of Westminster Abbey,” p. 6. London, 1751.
[4] This commission undoubtedly did a great deal for the public; but it must not be forgotten that it made use of a very considerable amount of public money, and left the work it had to do in a very imperfect state. At the present time vast stores of most valuable information are lying buried in language ineligible only to a few; and if any enquirer wishes to make out what particles of knowledge there may be in this store-house relative to the object of his search, he has not only the ancient English character, cramped, and contracted, law-latin to learn; but for the want of well-arranged indices—more especially good indices locorum—a life-time to spend in collecting his materials. All this was exceedingly well managed to keep out the inquisitive gaze of a curious public, who were to be kept in ignorance; but since knowledge is acknowledged to be power, and since the people have been admitted to know, it would, surely be good policy to offer facilities for making that knowledge as perfect as possible.
[5a] Vide Appendix to second General Report from the Commissioners on Public Records, p. 386.