es I., he was one of the Commissioners of Array for this county,
and on May 28, 1645, had the honour of entertaining his sovereign at
Cotes, after which he was fined 1114l. by the parliamentary
sequestrators. He was the last of the family who resided at Cotes; and
amongst his poems is "An Elegy on the Death of my never enough lamented
master, King Charles I." The others are chiefly of a melancholy turn.
Sir Henry, his second son, died soon after his father, unmarried;
whereupon his title and estate went to his next brother Sir Gray, who,
after the death of the king, went with several other gentlemen, to
avoid the usurpation, over to Virginia, and there married, and left one
son.--Nichols's _Leicestershire_, vol. iii. p. 367., which also
contains a pedigree of the family. Consult also Lloyd's _Worthies_,
p. 649.]

_College Battel._--What is the derivation of a word peculiar to the
universities, _battels_: is it connected with _batten?_

S. A.

[In Todd's _Johnson_ we read, "BATTEL, from Sax. [taelan] or [tellan],
to count, or reckon, having the prefix _be_. The account of the
expenses of a student in {327} any college in Oxford." In the _Gent.
Mag._ for Aug. 1792, p. 716., a correspondent offers the following
probable etymology: "It is probably derived from the German _bezahlen_;
in Low German and Dutch _bettahlen_; in Welsh _talz_; which signifies
to pay; whence may be derived likewise the English verb _to tale_, and
the noun a _tale_, or _score_, if not the corrupted expressions _to
tell_ or _number_, and _to tally_ or _agree_."]

_Origin of Clubs._--Can any of your correspondents inform me from whence
the cognomen of "club" came to be applied to select companies, and which
was the first society that bore that title?

F. R. B.

[Club is defined by Johnson to be "an assembly of good fellows, meeting
under certain conditions." The present system of clubs may be traced in
its progressive steps from those small associations, meeting (as clubs
of a lower grade still do) at a house of public entertainment; then we
come to a time when the club took exclusive possession of the house,
and strangers could be only introduced, under regulations, by the
members; in the third stage, the clubs build houses, or rather palaces,
for themselves. The club at the Mermaid Tavern in Friday Street was,
according to all