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amongst the tenants, which the Irish about forty years since (circiter 1550) of my own knowledge, still continued, calling it cuttings, according to our word tallagium. But amongst us it was taken away by the Magna Charta of King John."-Spelman, Of Parliament, London, 1723.

Abolished as the custom had been by Magna Charta, it was not taken away, as Spelman asserts; for we find that during the "visitations " or "progresses" of Queen Elizabeth, she obtruded her royal presence, eating the landlord out of house and home."

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In that patriarchal phasis of society which Ireland shared with other nations, where all members of a sept were "of the one blood," and had the same social status, those primitive and inartificial customs, which prevailed, worked well and harmoniously, and were seldom or never impeded or disturbed by those irregularities, which the AngloNorman officials so conveniently for themselves detected, and so indignantly denounced in later years. On the contrary, we have it upon the best authorities, that the colonists adopted them, and exposed themselves to the odium subsequently involving them. Sir John Davies says:

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"But when the English had learned it (coshering), they used it with more insolence, and made it more intolerable, for this oppression was not temporary or limited either to place or time, &c., and this crying sin did drawe downe greater plagues uppon Ireland than the oppression of the Israelites did drawe uppon the land of Egypt. For the plagues of Egypt, though they were grievous, were but of short duration; but the plagues of Ireland lasted four hundred years together, that is, from the invasion of the English."-Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, &c. London, 1612, p. 174.

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The author of the Faerye Queene, the poet Spenser, in his View of the State of Ireland, 1596, a few years before Dymmok wrote, describing coshery" and kindred" customs, gives the following apologetic explanation, and singularly, though I am convinced inaccurately, attributes its introduction into Ireland to the English colonists:

"The which is a common use amongst the landlords of the Irish, to have a common spending amongst their tennants at will, they use to take of what victuals they will, for of victuals they were wont to make small reckoning; neither in this was the tennant wronged, for it was an ordinary and knowne custome, and HIS LORD USE TO SO COVENANT WITH HIM, which if at any time the tennant disliked, he might freely depart at his pleasure, &c., the

which (I thinke) were customs at first brought in by the English upon the Irish."

By the Irish custom of Tanistry, the chieftain of every country and the head of every clan had only a life interest in their "chieferies." Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland in the reign of James I., states that their cuttings and "cosheries," &c. constituted their revenues. When the chieftain died, their sons and next of kin did not succeed to him. The "Tanist" succeeded, and had been elected during the lifetime of his pre

decessor. Personal qualifications and consanguinity were the only requisite recommendations. Every hale male of the sept was eligible. On the death of a clan's man, his portion was not divided amongst his sons, but the chief made a partition of all the lands belonging to his sept, and gave every one his part according to his "antiquity;" and however small their allotments, or indigent their circumstances, "yet did the military men scorn to descend to husbandry or merchandise." They were the ruling class. With the sword they won the "Green Isle;" with the sword they were always ready to stand up for their inheritance; their claims for support on their territory, "never receiving other pay," was equal if not superior to those of the cultivators of the soil and other producers of wealth. To a free maintenance the warrior and the chief had at least as strong a hereditary claim as had or has a feudal lord to his inheritance.

In the ceaseless strifes with alternating advantages, between the English settlers and the natives, for centuries, the men who bore arms were the most troublesome, most dreaded, most detested, most abused by their adversaries; thus the harshest measures, the most virulent abuse, the most. opprobrious epithets were applied to the Kearns, Galloglasses, and Dalteens, and found a restingplace even in the statutes.

The total destruction of the "Men of Warres," the retainers of the chieftains of the "Irish enemies," and of the "English rebel Lords," became at an early period the chief aim of the English Government; and to ensure this politic resolve, recourse was had, not only to arms, but to legislation, and many Acts of Parliament were made in consequence.

William Burke, Earl of Ulster, and Lord of Connaught, was slain in Ulster by his English attendants. He left an only daughter to inherit his vast possessions. She was afterwards married to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III., but that prince never came into possession, for the next male heirs of the deceased earl seized upon his extensive territories, according to the Brehon laws, and afterwards retained them in despite of the English government. Duke Lionel came twice to Ireland, in the capacity of Lord Lieutenant, to gain possession, but in vain. By this prince was summoned at Kilkenny, A.D. 1367, the most famous parliament that till then had been held in Ireland, in which the statute of Kilkenny was passed. By its provisions, the most stringent measures were applied for the extinction of Coyne and Livery, &c., Idlemen, &c., and the reformation of the colonists, who had adopted the laws, language, and manners of the "Irish enemies," and had conciliated the natives by intermarriages and other alliances. "If any did submit himself to the Brehon law, he should be

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"The fact is, that it was no more than a peevish and revengeful expression of the resentment Duke Lionel felt from the opposition he had met with, and the loss of those lands he had come over to claim."-Strictures on the State of Ireland, 4to, p. 31.

In the Irish State Papers, vol. xv. there is an interesting document bearing date December 2, 1565, No. 55, p. 281, &c., thus described: "From a book to be exhibited unto the Rt. Hon. the La Lieut. (Sir Henry Sydney) agayst Coyn and Livery wch thearle of Kildare taketh by exforce of thenhabitants of the Countie Kildare wth other the sayd earles enormities and abuses."

mon people were taught, &c., that the Cuttings, Cosheries, Sessings, and other extortions of their Lords, were unlawful; and that they should not any more submit thereunto. Thereupon the power of those Irish Lords over the people sodainly fell and vanished."-Pp. 264-268.

The fact is by what, in legal phrase, is called the forfeitures to the crown, the septs were deprived of their lands, till then their common property, reduced to a state of indigence and helpless dependence; subjected as tenants to fixed rents, and other obligations, arbitrarily imposed and rigidly exacted, outraging their sense of justice. This is the fount and source of many of the evils which afflict Ireland.

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To the acts of Anne and George, which sugAmongst several items it contains the follow-gested and sustained the presentment against ing: Patrick Doyle, it is needless to refer. There now remains merely to explain the derivation of the word Cosherer.

"And it was enacted in the time of King Ric. the Second, at his personall being here in this realme of Ireland, that Coyn and Livery should be abolished the Englishe pale as Methe (Meath), the countie of Dublin, the countie of Kildare, and the countie of Catherlaghe, weh acte was newly confirmed by Kynge Edward IIIIth, as doth appear by record, &c.

"Item, in the rayne of Kinge Henry VIIth, there paste an acte within this realme of Ireland weh is called thacte of Marches and Maghery, that such as take coyn in the Maghery or Englishe pale should be estemed felons.

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Item, Sir Anthony Fitz Harbard Knighte, and other commissioners, sent hither by the late prince of famous memory, Kinge Henry VIIIth, took order that thactes aforesayd should stand in pour. “Item, in the tyme of Sir William Sheryngton, beinge deputie of this realme, ther paste an acte for the extinguishment of the sayd coyn and livery as playnly may appere by the same acte in print, conferminge likewise thactes aforesayd," &c.

In the same volume of this Series of State Papers, Eliz., an. 14 (1565), October 5, are "Instructions to Sir Henry Sydney, Lord Deputie and Council." In which it is stated that her "Matio is informed," &c., that

"there are sufficient provisions already made against the greatest abuses found in that Realme as against coinyng Livery and Coshery,' against wearing of Irish apparel, against succouring of felons, against Ryots and unlawful assemblees, against Retayners, against taking of Tributes, against marrying or fostering wth Irishmen: And special lawes also, according to the Statute of Winchester," &c.

Her Majesty then concludes by charging and commanding her Lieutenant

"to cause searche to be made as well for the said Lawes, as for any other lyke to the same, and therof to make advertissment what shall be thought meete, with the publishing of the same."

On the termination of Tyrone's war with James I., the spirits of the people were broken; and Sir John Davies, in the work already quoted, says that.

"Sir George Cary did, in the first year of his Majesty's reyne (1603), make the first sheriffes that ever were made in Tyrone and Tirconnell; and shortly after, sent Sir Edmund Pelham, Chief Baron, and myselfe, thither-the first Justices that ever sat in those countries. The com

man.

Cosherer, a free feast-er, a free guest; compounded of cosair, a feast, a banquet; and fear, a The initial being aspirated, fear is pronounced ar or er, and is the agglutinated affix in "Cosherer." This affix, I would suggest, is to be found elsewhere than in the Irish, and probably in those nouns in the English language ending in er, and in their signification including an agent. Coshair, a feast, a banquet-in the Irish co-sair, for the Irish s is invariably sh-is also a compound word, the components being primitives; thus abnegating the oriental descent in its integrate form. Cot, meat, victuals—the final t being aspirated, cot is pronounced co; and saor, free, voluntary. See Reilly's, Begley's, O'Connell's, and O'Brien's Irish Dictionaries, and Shaw's and Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionaries, under these words.

"Cosherer" is found in our Law Dictionaries— Blount, Jacob, Cowell, and Tomlins; but it is acknowledged that they obtained it from Spelman, who recognises it as used by the Irish.

JOHN EUGENE O'CAVANAGH, Lime Cottage, Walworth Common, London.

BALLAD: BATTLE OF HARLAW.
ORIGINAL VERSION.

In order that the original words of this old ballad may not be lost, they are sent to "N. & Q." in the hope that they may find a place there.

I.

"As I cam in by Dunidier, and down by Wetherha', There was fifty thousan' Hielan' men a' marchin' to Harlaw, (Chorus) In a dree, dree, drady drumtie dree.

II.

"As I cam on, and farther on, and doun an' by Balquhain,

Oh, there I met Sir James the Rose, wi' him Sir John the Gryme.

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XVII.

"Then back to back the brithers twa gaed in amang the thrang,

And they hewed doun the Hielan men wi' swords baith sharp and lang.

XVIII.

"M'Donell he was young an' stout, had on his coat o' mail,

And he has gane oot through them a', to try his han himsel'.

ΧΙΧ.

"The first ae stroke that Forbes struck, made the great M'Donell reel,

The second stroke that Forbes struck, the great M'Donell fell.

XX.

"An siccan a' pilleurichie' the like ye never saw As there was amang the Hielanmen, when they saw M'Donell fa'.

XXI.

"An when they saw that he was dead, they turned an❞

ran awa,

An they buried him in Seggatt's lan'* some twa three miles awa.

XXII.

"They rode, they ran, and some did gang, but they were of sma' record,

For Forbes and his merry men slew maist a' by the road [sword?].

XXIII.

"On Munonday at morning the battle it began, On Saturday at glo'min', ye'd scarce tell wha had wan.

XXIV.

"An sic a weary burying, the like ye never saw, As there was the Sunday after that on the muirs down by Harlaw.

XXV.

"An gin Hielan lasses speer at yu, for them that gaed

awa'

Ye may tell them plain an' plain eneuch they're sleepin' at Harlaw."

N.B. This, the original version of this ballad, one of the oldest in Scotland, has, it is believed, never been printed; various editions have, but never this. It is sung to a quaint lively air, and years ago might have been heard not unfrequently in the farmhouses in Aberdeenshire. The words must be pronounced in the broadest Aberdeenshire dialect. M'Donald is here spelled throughout M'Donell, simply for the sake of dropping the "d." It might have been better to have written "M'Donal'," but it is given literatim from the A. FERGUSON. manuscript.

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ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

"Cleopatra. It is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds; Which shackles accident, and bolts up change; Which sleeps and never palates more the dung, The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's."-Act V. Sc. 2. Before examining the italicised phrase let me say a word or two on the interpretation of the verbs in this fourth line. In the third and fifth, Death, the "thing" of the second line, is personified, and the words "never more" forbid us to take sleeps and palates as attributives of such a being. Neither as a second supposition can it be believed that Shakspeare clumsily or sleepily forgot that he had thus personified death and so spoke of it in the intermediate line as a state into which the living being falls. It is more natural to consider the personification of death as one acting on us, to be carried on throughout, and to interpret sleeps and palates as casual verbs. Death which shackles, which bolts up, which causes sleep, which never causes or allows of palating, the nurse of Cæsar and the beggar. Linger and fall are familiar examples of this causal usage.

Now if the reader adopt the first or second of the above interpretations, then he must at once reject Warburton's change of "never palates more the dug," for this makes Shakspeare represent death first as an infant, and then as a nurse. On the other hand, if he reads the verbs as causals, though this objection does not hold, yet the phrase, on close examination, will be seen to be neither suggested by any word used by Cleopatra, nor by any thought which can be supposed to have entered her mind. Life to her was the time since she had become a woman and a queen. That life she thoroughly enjoyed; but her infantile life and its pleasures would be the last thing she would think of, and that life was to her as great a blank as death itself. In fact Warburton formed his thought on Cleopatra's after-thought, and this gives it its apparent suitableness.

The original reading again-"to palate the dung," gives, I conceive, somewhat of the sense intended; but the word is objectionable on three grounds. Shakspeare was a great chooser of words, and generally very happy in his choice, but though the produce of the earth may, in any one's estimation, be as dung, it can in no other way be or be likened to dung, and therefore I do not think it would be used in this sense, when it is no way pre-shadowed or led up to, without some defining word, such as of the earth, or vile, &c. Secondly, the luxurious Cleopatra did not so estimate the good things of this world. Her "better life," that she speaks of, is clearly nothing more than the doing, after the old Roman fashion, of something more noble than the consenting to live as a captive. Her pride and all the habits of her life revolted against being shown in triumph, and

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The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip." Thirdly, Cleopatra was a thorough woman in her mobility, and power of identifying herself with the spirit of the hour. When enraged with her messenger, she might have called him dung of the earth (though even then Shakspeare avoids putting into her mouth worse epithets than horrible villain, or cuckold), but it is certain that when moralising, her delicacy or unconscious raising herself to the height of that great argument; or if you will, her sense of fitness would revolt against the utterance of so gross a word.

But when we sleep two acts are unperformed, one essential to life itself, the other essential to social life, and both of the very essence of life to Cleopatra. We neither taste food nor talk; and, as exemplified in the words taste, talk, dicere, gouster, λaxew, "gluck," and others; the palating the tongue, or touching the tongue with the palate, is essential to, and will therefore express, both these acts. As to taste, if the reader will place any savoury scentless matter on his tongue, he can test the truth of this for himself. I would therefore read-" And never palates more the tongue," or as it was often spelled, "tong."

B. NICHOLSON.

SCOTCH PEERS, 1713-14.

a Scotch genealogical writer, are worthy of preThe following notanda, from the collections of servation. The notes are by the writer:

Paris-Political State of Great Britain, p. 78. 23rd January, 1713, N. S. The Earl of Melfort died at

24th January, 1713. The Earl of Selkirk set out by Dover and Calais for France, to renew his solicitations about his pretensions to the Dutchy of Chastel Herault.— Ibid. p. 77.

14 June, 1713. The Earle of Blantyre, one of the sixteen Scotch Peers, died in Westminster of a fever, much lamented. He is succeeded in his honours and estate by his brother, then a Captain in Port Mahon.-Ibid. p. 459. [The Earldom is in the creation of the author. His Lordship was only a Scotch baron.]

4th January, 1714. The Earl of Crawfurd, a North British Peer, Colonel of the second troop of her Majesty's Horse Grenadier Guards, died of a phthisick. Ibid. p. 71. [This nobleman was the Lord Whigridden of Pitcairn's witty comedy of The Assembly.]

18th May, 1714. Lord Irwin dies of small-pox. Ibid. p. 449. [He was the fourth Viscount, and died at the early age of twenty-eight, unmarried. The founder of the family was an Alderman of London: he died in 1612.]

On Friday, 17th of August, 1714. The Earl of Cromarty died in the North of Scotland, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He was made a Baronet by King Charles. He was a person of universal learning, the oldest officer perhaps in the world. In his time a very able statesman, and a great honour to his native county.-Ibid. p. 246. [A tolerably correct enumeration of his Lordship's works will be found in Wood's edition of Douglas's Scotish Peerage.] 18th November, 1714. The Earl of Dunbar, a Scotch Roman Catholic Peer, dyed in London, and was succeeded in his honours and estate by his brother, William Constable, Esq. [This nobleman was only a Viscount. His only daughter Anne became eventually heiress of line. She married Simon Scrope of Danby. The patent, being to heirs male bearing the name and arms of Constable, has been in abeyance since the death of William Constable, who did not long survive his brother.]

24th November. The Lord Aston, another Roman Catholic, who was succeeded by his son [Walter].-Ibid. p. 469. [This Peerage was created by Charles I., Nov. 28, 1627, with a remainder to heirs male for ever. In consequence of this, after the failure of heirs male of the body, the title went to a cook and a watchmaker-for to this humble position the male representatives of this noble family had been reduced. The last Lord was the 9th Baron. He was in holy orders; though married, he had no issue, and, since his death, no claimant to the honours has appeared.]

J. M.

THE ROMAN HYPOCAUST AT SLACK. When this hypocaust was discovered about forty years ago, a sketch of it was made by the late Mr. Tayler, of Halifax, architect. This sketch was subsequently deposited in the Museum of the Leeds Philosophical Society, but now-non est inventus.

Mr. Tayler had also a rough outline of the hypocaust in one of his sketch books, but it was sold with some other of his plans and drawings some few years ago.

Let me now say through "N. & Q.," in the hope that it will reach the possessors of either of these sketches, that a copy, or the loan of either of them, will greatly oblige the Council of the Huddersfield Archæological Association. Address, Rev. George Lloyd, Hon. Sec., Thurstonland, Huddersfield. GEO. LLOYD.

THE METROPOLITAN ROADS IN 1692.-There is a curious entry in the Lords' Journals for March 1, 1692, which shows the difficulties of travelling even in the neighbourhood of London at that time. The House had assembled at one o'clock to meet the Commons at a Conference; but the Speaker, Sir Robert Atkyns, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, not having arrived, the Duke of Somerset was chosen Speaker pro tempore. The cause of his absence is shown by an entry in the latter part of the day's proceedings: :

"A message was sent to the House of Commons by Sir Miles Cook and Sir Adam Ottley:

"To let the Commons know, that the Speaker of the House of Lords, living two miles out of town, and the badness of the roads at this present, was the only occa

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"Mr. Greenhow, the gentleman who will present this, is a warm admirer of your talents; and finding occasion to brave the world of waters which lie between this vast continent and the emporium of learning and genius, wished an opportunity of seeing you. I have, therefore, taken the liberty of introducing him, in the hope of double gratification. He is a gentleman of good mind, extensive reading, and well acquainted with the history and all particulars relative to his country. He is, too, a profound lover of the drama. He will be happy to inform you of its state in this country; which, with other matters, may while (sic) away an hour, and perchance amuse you. Your society and converse will on his part be highly valued. I learn that poor Ogilvie' has passed that 'bourne whence no traveller returns:' his troubled spirit now finds rest. In the confidence that you do not think me presuming, and that your literary labours may ever be crowned [crowed in MS.] by a golden harvest, I remain yours, with great respect,

"New York,

April 29th, 1821.

"William Hazlitt, Esq.

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R. C. MAYWOOD.

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