MACKENZIE.

January 20. 1851.

_Venville_ (Vol. iii., p. 38.).--R. E. G. inquires respecting the origin of
this word, as applied to certain tenants round Dartmoor Forest. The name is
peculiar to that district, and is applied chiefly to certain _vills_ or
villages (for the most part also parishes), and to certain tenements within
them, which pay fines to the Lord of Lidford and Dartmoor, viz. the Prince
of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall. The fines are supposed to be due in respect
either of rights of common on the forest, or of trespasses committed by
cattle on it; for the point is a _vexata quaestio_ between the lord and
tenants of Dartmoor and the tenants of the Venville lands, which lie along
the boundaries of it. {153} In the accounts rendered to the lord of these
fines, there was a distinct title, headed _"Fines Villarum"_ when these
accounts were in Latin; and I think it cannot be doubted that the lands and
tenures under this title came to be currently called _Finevill_ lands from
this circumstance. Hence Fenvill, Fengfield, or Venvill; the last being now
the usual spelling and pronunciation. R. E. G. may see a specimen of these
accounts, and further observations on them, in Mr. Rowe's very instructive
_Perambulation of Dartmoor_, published a year or two ago at Plymouth.

E. S.

_Cum Grano Salis_ (Vol. iii., p. 88.) simply means, with a grain of
allowance; spoken of propositions which require qualification. The
Cambridge man's explanation, therefore, does not suit the meaning. I have
always supposed that salis was added to denote a small grain. I find in
Forcellini that the Romans called a small flaw in crystals _sal_.

C. B.

_Hoops_ (Vol. iii., p. 88.).--The examples given in Johnson's article
_Farthingale_ will sufficiently answer the question. Farthingales are
mentioned in Latimer with much indignant eloquence:

"I trow Mary had never a verdingale."

If the question had been, not whether they were in use as early as 1651,
but whether they were in use in 1651, perhaps there would have been more
difficulty, for they do not appear in Hollar's dresses, 1640.

C. B.

_Cranmer's Descendants_ (Vol. iii., p. 8.).--It may be of some interest to
C. D. F. to be informed, that the newspapers of the time recorded the death
of Mr. Bishop Cranmer of Wivelescombe, co. Somerset, on the 8th April,
1831, at the age of eighty-eight. He is said to have been a direct
descendant of the martyred archbishop, to whose por