E.

(Vol. iii., pp. 152. 310.)

I observe, in p. 310. of the present volume, that two correspondents, P.
and K., have contributed conjectures as to the meaning and origin of the
term _venville_, noticed and explained _ante_, p. 152. The _origin_ of the
word is of course to some extent open to conjecture; but they may rest
assured that the _meaning_ of it is not, nor ever has been, within the
domain of mere conjecture with those who have had any opportunities of
inquiry in the proper quarter. The term has not the slightest reference to
the ceremony of delivering possession, which P. has evidently witnessed in
the case of his father, and which lawyers call livery of seisin; nor is
there on Dartmoor any such word as _ven_ signifying peat, or as _fail_,
signifying turf. No doubt a fen on the moor would probably contain "black
earth or peat," like most other mountain bogs; and if (as K. says) _fail_
means a "turf or flat clod" in Scotland, I think it probable that a
Scotchman on Dartmoor might now and then so far forget himself as to call
peat or turf by a name which would certainly not be understood by an
aboriginal Devonian. The local name of the peat or other turf cut for fuel
is _vaggs_, and this has perhaps been confounded in the recollection of
K.'s informant with _ven_. At all events, I can assure both P. and K. (who,
I presume, are not familiar with the district) that the tenants of venville
lands have no functions to perform, as such, in any degree connected with
either turf-cutting, or "fenging fields," and that they do not necessarily,
or generally, occupy peat districts, or rejoice in

"All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats," &c.;

but, on the contrary, they are the owners of some of the most valuable,
salubrious, and picturesque purlieus of the forest. With regard to the name
"fengfield," although I am pretty familiar with the records of the forest
extant for the last five hundred years past, I do not remember that it is
ever so named or spelt in the muniments of the manor or forest. It is so
written by Risdon, and in some few other documents entitled to little
weight, and from which no safe inference can be drawn. Whatever be the
etymological origin of the term, it should be assumed as indisputable by
any one who may hereafter exercise his ingenuity or his fancy upon it, that
the four most prominent {356} incidents to the tenure are--1. payment of
fines; 2. situation in an ancien