Various - Notes and Queries, Number 17, February 23, 1850

we have the following editorial comment:—"These two lines are a versification of a saying of Montaigne." (!!!) The saying is not by Montaigne, but by La Rochefoucauld:—

"On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie; mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une."— Max. 73.

Byron borrows the same idea again:—

"Writing grows a habit, like a woman's gallantry. There are women who have had no intrigue, but few who have had but one only; so there are millions of men who have never written a book, but few who have written only one."— Observations upon an Article in Blackwood's Magazine ; Byron's Works , vol. xv. p. 87, Moore's Edition, 17 vols duod. London, 1833.

Both the silence of the author, and the blunder of his editor, seem to me to prove that Les Maximes are not as generally known and studied as they deserve to be.

Your correspondent MR. RIMBAULT (No. 12.) has made rather a grave charge against my predecessors in office as churchwardens and overseers of this parish; and although, I regret to say, such accusations of unjust stewardship and dereliction of duty are frequently and with justice imputed to some parish officers, yet I am happy to be able, in this instance, to remove the stigma which would otherwise attach to those of St. Antholin. The churchwardens' accounts are in good preservation, and present (in an unbroken series) the parish expenditure for nearly three centuries.

Mr. Rimbault has doubtless been misled by some error in the description of the MSS. in Mr. Thorpe's catalogue (as advertised by him for sale), which were probably merely extracts from the original records.

The first volume commences with the year 1574, and finishes in 1708; the accounts are all written at the time of their respective dates, and regularly signed by the auditors then and there present as correct.

I have made numerous extracts from these interesting documents, and notes thereon, which I shall at some future time be happy to lay before your readers, if you should consider them of sufficient importance.

As a voucher for what I have stated with regard to their existence, and to give some idea of their general character, I have selected (at random) a few items from the year 1580-1:—

"The Accompte of Henrie Jaye, Churchwarden of the Parishe of St. Antholyne, from the feaste of the Anunciacon of our Ladye in Anno 1580 unto the same feaste followinge in Anno 1581."

Among the "receaittes" we have—

"The Payments as followithe:—

Overseer of St. Antholin, 1850.

Mr. Editor.—If your very valuable work had existed in October, 1847, when I published in the British Magazine a part of Archibishop Whitgift's accounts relative to his pupils while he was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, I should certainly have applied to you for assistance.

In several of the accounts there is a charge for the pupil's "salting;" and after consulting gentlemen more accurately informed with regard to the customs of the university than myself, I was obliged to append a note to the word, when it occurred for the first time in the account of Lord Edward Zouch, in which I said, "I must confess my inability to explain this word; and do not know whether it may be worth while to state that, on my mentioning it to a gentleman, once a fellow-commoner of the college, he told me, that when, as a freshman, he was getting his gown from the maker, he made some remark on the long strips of sleeve by which such gowns are distinguished, and was told that they were called 'salt-bags,' but he could not learn why; and an Oxford friend tells me, that going to the buttery to drink salt and water was part of the form of his admission.... This nobleman's ( i.e. Lord Edward Zouch's) amounted to 4 s. , and that of the Earl of Cumberland to 3 s. 4 d. , while in other cases it was as low as 8 d. " To this I added the suggestion that it was probably some fee, or expense, which varied according to the rank of the parties. It afterwards occurred to me that this "salting" was, perhaps, some entertainment given by the new-comer, from and after which he ceased to be "fresh;" and that while we seem to have lost the "salting" both really and nominally, we retain the word to which it has reference.