reditor; also a _Memorial_, vulgarly called a
waste-book, and a cash-book, with a journal and a ledger, &c., 1670. This
is the first reference I have seen to the correct designation of the book,
which might have received it vulgar name of _waste_ from wast, the second
person of _was_--thus the Memorial or the Wast-book.

BLOWEN.

_Cowdray_ (Vol. iii., p. 194.).--There is a misprint here of _Eastbourne_
for _Easebourne_. There is a curious note on Cowdray, and the superstition
attached to it, in Croker's _Boswell_, p. 711. 8vo. edit.

C.

_Solemnisation of Matrimony_ (Vol. ii., p. 464.).--A. A. will find, from
Blackstone's _Commentaries_, vol. ii. p. 135., that in feudal times a
husband had the power of protecting his lands from the wife's claim to
dower, by endowing her, _ad ostium Ecclesiae_, with specific estates to the
exclusion of others; or, if he had no lands at the time of the marriage, by
an endowment in goods, chattels, or money. When special endowments were
thus made, the husband, after affiance made and troth plighted, used to
declare with what specific lands he meant to endow his wife ("_quod dotat
eam de tali manerio_," &c.); and therefore, in the old York ritual (_Seld.
Ux. Hebr._ l. ii. c. 27.) there is at this part of the matrimonial service
the following rubric--"_Sacerdos interroget dotem mulieris; et si terra ei
in dotem detur, tunc dicatur psalmus iste_", &c. When the wife was endowed
_generally_, the husband seems to have said "with all my lands and
tenements I thee endow," and then they all became liable to her dower. When
he endowed her with personalty only, he used to say, "with all my worldly
goods (or, as the Salisbury ritual has it, "with all my worldly chattels")
I thee endow," which entitled the wife to her thirds, or _pars
rationabilis_, of his personal estate, which is provided for by Magna
Charta, cap. 26. The meaning, therefore, of the words noticed in A. A.'s
Query, if they can be said to have any meaning in the present state of the
law, is simply that the wife's dower is to be general, and not specific,
or, in other words, that she is to have her _pars rationabilis_ in _all_
her husband's goods.

J. F. M.

_Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke_ (Vol. iii., p. 262.).--Although
J. H. M. has concluded that William Browne was not the author of this
epitaph, because it is not to be found amongst his _Pastorals_, it would
nevertheless appear that the lines are rightly attributed to him,