In An Abstract of the late King’s Revenues (printed 1651, 4to.) is this entry relating to Bringwood:—­

“To Sir Robert Harley for keeping Boringwood alias Bringwood Forest Com.  Heref. 6l. 2s. 8d. per ann., for the Pokership 30s. 5d. by the year, and for the keeping the forest of Prestwood 18s. by the year.”

In a survey made of mocktree and Bringwood Forests in 1633, it is stated, that “these Forests are stately grounds, and do feed a great and large Deer, and will keep of Red and Fallow Deer two or three thousand at the least.”

These enclosures were disafforested temp.  Charles II., and they now form part of the Downton Castle Estate.

W.H.C.

Temple.

Porkership-Accept my best thanks for your ready insertion of my observations in No. 18.; but I regret to say that the printer has unfortunately made a mistake in one word, and that, as it mostly happens, the principal one, on which the gist of my illustration in regard to the Pokership depends.  The error occurs in the extract from the Pipe Roll, where the word has been printed Parcario instead of Porcario; added to which the abbreviations in the other words are wanting, which renders the meaning doubtful.  It should have been printed thus:—­“Et [i+] li[b+]ae const Porcario de [h+]eford,”—­being, in extenso, “Et in liberatione constat Porcario de Hereford.”  Showing that in early times there was a hog warden, or person who collected the king’s hog-rent in Hereford.  And further, Mr. Smirke’s extract in No. 17. p. 269., shows that in Henry VIII.’s time the Porcarius had become Pocarius, the fee being within 1d. of the same amount as that paid in John’s reign.

May I, under these circumstances, crave a short note in your next Number, correcting the oversight, so that my Porker may be set on his legs again?

P.S.—­In reference to the claim, the name of the place should be Burnford, not Barnford.

T.R.F.

Spring Gardens, March 4, 1850.

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REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Coleridge’s Christabel and Byron’s Lara (No. 17. p. 262.).—­What Christabel saw is plain enough.  The lady was a being like Duessa, a Spenser; a horrible-looking witch, who could, to a certain degree, put on an appearance of beauty.  The difference is, that this lady had both forms at once; the one in her face, the other concealed.  This is quite plain from the very words of Coleridge.

The lifting her over the sill seems to be something like the same superstition that we have in Scott’s Eve of St. John:—­

    “But I had not had pow’r to come to thy bow’r,
    If Though had’st not charm’d me so.”