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Mr. URBAN,

SUCH

Murch 31. UCH of your I ders as bave travelled from Leicester to Hinckley will doubtless recollect the long straggling village of Shilton, situate about three miles from Hinckley, and 10 from the county town. called Earl's Shilton, to distinguish it from another place of the same name near Coventry.

It is

In the time of the Conqueror Shilton was part of the large possessions of that famous Norman baron Hugo de Grentesmainell, from whom it descended to the antient Earls of Leicester, who successively held it till the forfeiture of Simon de Montfort in 1265.

In 1272, Shilton was demised, inter alia, by Henry III. to his eldest son Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, as a security for 3000 marks. This manor hath ever since been parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Mr. Burton says, "The Earls of Leicester had here a Castle, now ruinated and gone; yet the place where it stood is to this day called the Castle yard. The Court-leet belonging to this manor is of a large precinct, to which the resiauncy of 25 towns do belong."

The Lordship was enclosed in 1778. By the Return to Parliament in 1811, Earl Shilton contained 1 house building, 3 uninhabited, and 307 houses inhabited by 309 families; 65 of which were chiefly employed in agriculture, and 221 in trade (mostly stocking-makers); consisting of 758 males and 775 females, total 1,533.

The Church or Chapel, (see Plate II.) dedicated to St. Peter, is dependant on the mother-church of Kirkby Malory (of which you have already given a View, in vol. LXXXIV. ii. p. 625.) It has a porch both on the North and South. The inside is neat ; consisting of a nave, chancel, two side ailes, and two small galleries; one at the West end, and the other on the North side. The font is antient and circular.

H

N.'R. S.

Mr.URBAN, Kensington, March 25. AVING received the following communication from Dr. Elrington, Provost of Dublin College, I lose no time in gratifying that gentleman's wishes by giving it publicity through the channel of your widely GENT. MAG. April, 1818.

circulated Magazine. As it never was in contemplation to publish a se cond edition of the Bibliographical Decameron, I am the more solicitous for its immediate insertion: being as anxious as its highly-respectable writer to "gratify the feelings of the living, and do justice to the memory of the dead." T. F. D. Yours, &c.

"SIR,

"Provost-house, Dublin College, March 2. "As a second edition of your Bibliographical Decameron will, I doubt not, be called for, I write to request that you will admit into it a few observations on the account given by Mr. M'Neille (vol. III. p. 384.) of the late Bishop of Dromore (Doctor Hall.)

"Connected with him as I was for upwards of thirty years, I should feel very culpable indeed did I silently acquiesce in the unfounded censures upon his character which are contained in Mr. M'Neille's Letter.

He

"I shall begin by observing, that Mr. M'Neille, in stating Bishop Hall to have been a sizar shews himself not to have been very anxious about ob taining information on the subject upon which he wrote: the College Registry, to which he might readily have bad access, would bave informed him that he was a pensioner. might have learned from the College Bookseller, that his account of the difficulty thrown in the way of admitting your Bibliomania into the Mr. Library is equally erroneous. Mercier's statement is, that, on bringing to Dr. Hall the only copy he had for sale, he looked at it for some time, and then gave it back to him; saying that he would not take it, as it ought to be in the College Library, for which it was, of course, immediately purchased.

"A's little founded in fact is Mr. M'Neille's assertion, that very few books were bought for the College while Dr. Hall was Provost. I have compared the sums expeuded in his time with the purchases of the preceding ten years, and find the average to be in his favour. It is indeed probable that he preferred books of immediate utility to those which were only objects of curiosity; and, I dare say, would have thought it his duty to purchase the Philosophical Transactions, rather than the rarest speci

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imen of the art of Caxton: a preference for which probably he will be censured but by few.

But these are trifles. What I complain of in Mr. M'Neille's Letter is the character he gives of Dr. Hall as a man. He has said that he was not sincere nor open-hearted; and that, like Swift, he was sarcastic, and loved a shilling dearly. Now, it is a notorious fact, that Dr. Hall, from the time he became a Fellow, always lived in a manner suitable to, if not above, his rank; and during his ProVostship maintained his place in the first circle in a manner much more nearly allied to profusion than to parsimony. Nor was he sarcastic, though he might be deemed fastidious; his quick sensibility rather preying upon himself than venting itself in censure upon others. It was Gray that be most nearly resembled; and in that comparison I shew sufficiently how very opposite his character was to the gloomy ferocity of Swift.

Equally remote from his disposition was insincerity. His attachments were strong and lasting; and often has he been known to exert himself in forwarding the interests of a friend in circumstances under which he would not have made application for himself. As to his not being open-hearted, his character was marked with the quiet seriousness of an Englishman; and he certainly was not ready to pour out upon any one who would listen to him, an account of his conduct; to tell the history of his life, or to sketch a view of his future prospects; and you sometimes found that he had done you an essential service, without annoying you with the anxiety of expectation, or exposing you to the vexation of disappointment. If to have acted thus was in Mr. M'Neille's opinion a proof of not being openhearted, I can only regret that he did not explain the sense in which he understood words which are generally considered as conveying no slight

censure.

"You will, Sir, I am confident, excuse the liberty I take in thus addressing you; and take the earliest opportunity of gratifying the feelings of the living, and doing justice to the memory of the dead.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servzui,
THOS. ELRINGTON.

"Should any unforeseen circumstance delay a second edition of your Decameron, you will, perhaps, think it right to send this Letter to the Gentleman's Magazine, or in some other way communicate it to the Publick. Rev. T. F. Dibdin, &c. &c."

YOUR

Mr. URBAN, April 2. YOUR worthy and learned Correspondent R. C. who has been so good as to take some pains to convince me that the designation of a Doctor of Civil Law ought not to be LL.D. appears, he will allow me respectfully to suggest, to have overlooked the object and nature of my remarks, which, howsoever I might express myself, were intended not to convey an idea that D. C. L. were not the appropriate distinctive marks of the Degree now conferred in Protestant Universities, but to inquire how it could be reconciled with consistency and propriety, that after LL. D. had been permitted for two or three centuries without observation, or objection on the part of the University Officers, it should all at once have been discovered that they were incorrect, and that they must be laid aside as we lay by an old coat when it is worn out? because we have a new one which looks smarter or pleases us better, although the cut or the colour may not be a whit more suitable to our shape or complexion. R. C. will forgive my reminding him, that it is not long since the promulgation, for I believe the first time, of a decree or law of the University of Oxford, that thenceforth degrees in Civil Law only would be conferred by that learned body. I have not before me the paper alluded to; but, unless I am under a very great mistake, it was so worded as to convey to every one who read it the notion that, until then the Degree had been in both Laws, according to the expression of Pope in the Dunciad, "Oxford and Cambridge made Doctor of their Laws."

For myself, Mr. Urban, I have always been of the opinion of my late learned and excellent friend Ferdinand Smyth Stuart, who, descended from a long race of Kings, and carrying in his veins, as Burke said on another occasion, that rich and noble blood which was formed by the united sources of the Julian Family and Attila the Hun, might be accredited as

good

good authority on such subjects; I have, I say, always agreed with him, that "rank and power ure only despicable unless founded on honour and virtue;" yet would I not, on any account, forego those honourable distinctions which have been in all ages considered the meed of worth, without knowing why or wherefore: and I must continue to say, that it is not less absurd for an University thus to abrogate its own solemn acts (that is, presuming that learned body to acquiesce in the explanation of R. C. and his reasons for the late innovation) than it would be for a Sovereign Prince to declare that henceforth there should be no more Dukedoms created, and that those who had been heretofore elevated to that Dignity ought not to be entitled "Your Grace."

In a word, Mr. Urban, these newfangled notions savour too much of the fashion and frippery of the times, to please an old LL.D.

P. S. Perhaps R. C. can inform us how long it is since the University discovered that M. A. [Magister Artium] is better Latin than A. M. [Artium Magister]; for I find this alliteration amongst the numerous modern im provements which strike me as more fanciful than scientific: indeed very much of the same class as the change of full-bottomed wigs for bobscratches.

Remarks on the Signs of Inns, &c. (Continued from p. 229.)

THE

HE BELL-THE RING OF BELLS. Bells were used by the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, but not for re

ligious purposes. They were made

of brass or iron, and were called Tinlinnabula by the Romans, whom they summoned to their baths. They were first introduced into churches in 458 under Pope Lec I.; or, according to some authors, in 400, by Paulinus, Bp. of Nola in Campania, whence they derive their name of Campanæ. Croyland Abbey in Lincolnshire had the first ring of bells in England; they were put up in Edgar's reign, and were six in number. There are 11 peals of twelve bells, viz. 5 in London, (at Christ Church, Spitalfields; St. Michael's, Cornhill; St. Martin's in the Fields; St. Leonard, Shoreditch; and St. Bride's, Fleet-street); and one at Birmingham, Cambridge,

Cirencester, Norwich, Shrewsbury, and St. Saviour's, Southwark. There are also in the United Kingdom about 50 peals of ten, 360 peals of eight, 500 peals of six, and 250 peals of five bells. According to Coxe and Porter, the great bell in St. Ivan's Church, Moscow, weighs 288,000lbs. and that which is broken weighed 432,000lbs. The great bell in St. Peter's at Rome, re-cast in 1785, is 18,667 lbs. The largest bell in this kingdom is "The Mighty Tom" of Oxford, which weighs 17,000lbs. There is a bell of the same weight, hung 275 feet from the ground, in the tower of the Palazza Vecchio at Florence. The great bell at Exeter cathedral, given by its Bishop Courtenay, weighs 12,500lbs. "Great Tom" of Lincoln weighs 9894lbs. The principal bell of St. Paul's, London, is estimated at 44 tons, or 9520lbs.

Bells were formerly baptized, anointed, exorcised, and blessed by the Bishop; and the favourite appellation of "Tom" applied to several large bells, probably arose from their having been baptized "Thomas" in honour of that "Saint-Traitor" (as Fuller calls him) Thomas à Becket, the murdered Abp. of Canterbury. The practice of baptizing and consecrating bells was introduced in 968 by Pope John XIII.

Their supposed uses are described in the Monkish lines: "Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabbata pango,

Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cru entos.'

Thus translated by Fuller:

Funera plango

Fulgura frango

Sabbata pango

Excito lentos

Dissipo ventos

Paco cruentos

Men's deaths I tell

By doleful knell.
Lightning & thunder
break asunder.

On Sabbath all
To church I call.
The sleepy head
I raise from bed.
The winds so fierce
I do disperse.
S Men's cruel rage

I do assuage.
"Laudo Deum verum, Plebem voco, con-
grego Clerum,
[coro,
Defunctos ploro, Pestem fugo, Festa de-

"I praise the true God, call the people, convene the clergy, lament the dead, dispel pestilence, and grace festivals."

Bells were also considered as demonifuges; and were rung, as Durand

informs

informs us, "Ut dæmones timentes fugiant-Timent enim auditis tubis ecclesiæ, scilicet campanis; sicut aliquis tyranous timet, audiens in terra sua tubas alicujus potentis regis inimici sui."

Steevens says, “The bell antiently rung before expiration was called The passing bell, i. e. the bell that solicited prayers for the soul passing into another world." And Mr. Douce conjectures that it was originally used to drive away demons who were watching to take possession of the soul of the deceased.

The Curfew (from the French couvre-feu) was instituted by William the Conqueror, who commanded that a bell should be rung every night at eight o'clock, on hearing which, all people were to put out their fire and candle.

"The Bell-inn at Edmonton" has acquired great celebrity from Cowper's tale of John Gilpin."

The proverbial expression of bearing the bell probably originated in the ornament of a bell bestowed on winning race-horses; whence races during the reign of James I. were styled Bell courses; and hence perhaps one cause of the popularity of this sign.

BELLE SAUVAGE. The coaches that ran to this well-known inn in London used to have painted on their sides a large bell and a savage man; but from Nightingale's London, I find that the Coffee-house exhibits, what was supposed to have been the original sign, the representation of a savage woman, derived from a romantic story of a beautiful wild French female called "La Belle Suuvage." But the real etymon, both of the ino, and yard or court of the same name in which it is situate, appears to be in the name of Isabella Savage, a lady who once possessed these premises, and conveyed them to the Cutlers' Company.

BISHOP BLAZE. This is a very popular ale-house sign in the cloathing counties, as he is the patron saint of Woolcombers, and to him is gene rally, but erroneously, ascribed the invention of their art; his usual representation, with a comb in his hand, being merely allusive to his martyr. dom by Agricolaus in 289, when he was beheaded, after having had his flesh lacerated by iron combs. He is said to have been Bishop of Sebasta,

or Sebask, in Cappadocia, or, according to other writers, of Sebastia, a city of Armenia, and to have visited England, fixing his residence at the village, in Cornwall, thence named St. Bluzey.

BLACKMOOR'S HEAD. A Negro's head is the crest of the Marquesses of Hertford and Drogheda, the Earls Newburgh, Annesley, and Mountnorris, Lords Grantley and Lyttelton.

It is supposed that the Morris dance, or Moorish dance, was introduced into England in the reign of Edward III. when the glorious Black Prince, by his victory at Najara or Navaretta, restored Don Pedro to the throne of Castile: Pedro's two daughters were married to the Black Prince's brothers; Constance to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, who assumed in her right the title of King of Castile ; and Isabel to Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge and afterwards

Duke of York.

BLOSSOMS INN - a considerable coach ion in London, derives its name from its antient sign, on which was painted a figure of St. Lawrence in a border of blossoms or flowers. Hence also the lane in which the house is situate is called Lawrence-lane.

St. Lawrence was born at Osea in Arragon, and was broiled to death on a gridiron, August 10, 258. The foundation of the famous palace of the Escurial, about 15 miles from Madrid, was laid by Philip II. in 1563, in honour of this patron Saint of Spain, and in commemoration of the victory which, aided by the English, he ob tained on St. Lawrence's day 1557, at St. Quintin, when the Constable and chief nobles of France were taken prisoners by Philip's General, the Duke of Savoy. In its principal front is a statue of the patron Saint holding a gridiron, and this instrument of martyrdom appears in almost every ornament in the building. This edifice, considered by the Spaniards as the eighth wonder of the world, cost 8 millions sterling. A Church near it is dedicated to this Saint.

THE BLUE BOAR, as we now generally see it represented on sign-` boards, was one of the badges of cognizance borne by the house of York, and is described in the antient memorandum found by Henry Ellis, Esq. and inserted in the Archæologia, vol. XVII. as having "his tuskes and his cleis and his membrys of golde."-The

boar,

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