per x dies, xlviiis. xid. ob. Et in expensis eorumdem eundo london' et redeundo, xiiis. vd. ob. Et in Jantaculo dato Willelmo Danvers, Jaye, et Famulis eorumdem apud Westmonasterium, iiis. xid." Bursars' Account Roll, 28 Sept., 11 Ed. IV.-28 Sept., 12 Ed. IV., 1471-2, under custus necessarii forinceci cum donis."

The foregoing entries form an excellent preface to those which record the homage itself and the journeys, consultations, refreshers, fees, and other expenses which secured its due performance :

annual fee of 51.; and two others of them, Wynsor and Jay, were receiving an annual fee, varying from 138. 4d. to 6s. 8d., besides the gown cloth which (as the Accounts show) they all received yearly.

At least one other reference to Prince

Edward occurs in the College Accounts; it relates to a visit of his minstrels :

:

"In datis ministrallis domini principis venientibus ad collegium festo Ascencionis domini cum xxd. datis ministrallis domini Regis mense Junii, v8." (1475-6).

His younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, was married in infancy to the Lady Anne Mowbray, and possibly her minstrels likewise visited the College, in August, 1478:

'Et datis ministrallis domini regis venientibus ad collegium primo die Septembris cum xxd. datis ministrallis domine regine venientibus 2o die Septembris et xiid. datis ministrallis domine Eboraci mense Augusti, vis." (1477-8).

"Et in expensis domini Custodis, magistri Johannis Whyte et aliorum existencium london' mense Novembris tempore parlyamenti pro homagio domino principi faciendo et pro aliis negociis collegii ad tunc occurrentibus ibidem per iii septimanas expectancium, cum expensis illuc eundo et inde redeundo, cvis. ixd. Et in Jantaculo dato Katesby, Wynsor, Thome Welle, Jay et Davers xiii die Novembris pro eorum consiliis in dicta materia habendis una cum xixd. pro vino pane et Focalibus apud Cardenalys Hatte datis eisdem pro communicacione in dicta materia primitus habenda, xiis. viid. ob. Et in Solutis pro Feodo camerarii domini principis in dicto homagio facto, xxs. et vis. viiid. pro Feodo hostiarii dicti domini principis cum vis. viiid. pro Feodo Secretarii pro privato Sigillo una cum x8. pro Feodo domini cancellarii pro magno Sigillo, xliiis. iiiid. Et in Solutis vectori london' pro cariagio Togarum et capuciorum domini Custodis, magistri Johannis Whyte et aliorum serviencium Custodi versus london' et a london' collegio, iis. viiid. Et in solutis eidem pro uno equo conducto ab eo pro Fesant tunc clerico THE LEVANT COMPANY IN CYPRUS: terrarum collegii a london' versus Winton' mense Novembris cum xs. solutis eidem pro diversis cariagiis factis per eundem in anno preterito, xis. iiiid. Bursars' Account Roll, 26 Sept., 12 Ed. IV.-24 Sept., 13 Ed. IV., 1472-3, under

"custus necessarii forinceci cum donis."

"Et in ii equis trottantibus, i Grey, altero pomeldonne coloris, emptis hoc anno, lxs. Et in solutis pro prebendis equorum domini Custodis existentis london' mense Novembris pro homagio faciendo domino principi cum ferruris eorumdem et xxd. conductione

pro

unius equi ab Alton' versus london' et viiid. pro reductione eiusdem et pro expensis unius equi transmissi pro vectore versus london' xvid., xiiis. viiid. Et in reparacionibus cellarum [et] Frenorum factis ibidem eodem tempore cum iiiid. pro ii halters, xvid. pro ii Byttis et viiid. pro ii Gyrthys, viiis. viiid."-Same Roll, under custus stabuli."

The Parliament referred to in the above extracts is that which met at Westminster on 6 Oct., 1472; and the "Cardinal's Hat," where the Warden had a preliminary talk with the legal advisers of the College, was probably the Southwark inn of that name which is also mentioned in The Paston Letters,' vol. iii., p. 26 (1875), in a bill of costs of November, 1471. One of these advisers, Thomas Welle (the eating and drinking reminds one of Mr. Solomon Pell), was Steward of the College Manors at an

As the marriage had been celebrated in the preceding January, it seems not unlikely that "domina Eboraci" means the bride. It may, however, mean the King's mother, the dowager Duchess of York. H. C. Winchester College.

RECORDS.

THE annexation on 5 November last of the island of Cyprus as a British Colony is a fitting subject for record in the pages of N. & Q.' At the same time, it may be of interest to publish the following notes on the records and monuments which survive of an English interest in the island in the the days of the eighteenth-century "Levant Company."

When in London last year, the present writer was permitted to turn over the old Letter - Books and bundles of documents in the Public Record Office, removed from the Aleppo Consulate in 1910, but not yet arranged or calendared. A cursory view of the Letter-Books from 1616 onwards showed there would be much to discover by any one who could devote a long time to the investigation. A few bundles of old letters of consuls and merchants during the eighteenth century contained some interesting odds and ends from which the following are culled.

The London merchant of the eighteenth century is not a prominent character in the literature of the time, and we get few

Aleppo in the seventeenth century was the emporium of the Indian trade: Venetian, French, Dutch, and English merchants constituted a large community within its walls, and in the reign of Charles II. upwards of fifty English houses formed the “nation' under the British Consul, and inhabited the English "Factory" or Khan.

glimpses of his comparatively dull, un-young merchant of 200 years ago would eventful life: his days devoted to business, very possibly have commissioned in Larnaca his evening walk to Dulwich or Hampstead, bazaar. and, returning to the old City home, his nightly relaxation at some neighbouring tavern. Such a course of existence would hardly fit him for the adventurous life in the Turkish Empire of those days, and yet, although we have but few souvenirs remaining of the Turkey merchants in England, the number of young men who embarked at Wapping or Blackwall on "levanters for Cyprus or Alexandretta must have been considerable in the eighteenth century.

Some few of the old City houses still linger in out-of-the-way nooks, mute monuments of unrecorded lives, with their neatlooking red-brick fronts and classic doorways entering into marble - paved halls. From such homes the young men whose graves are in the Levant went to pass years of weary exile in a Khan at Aleppo, or to found a Levantine family in Larnaca or Smyrna.

The majority of the merchants whose monuments remain in the Levant died in their youth. Extreme youth must have been a recommendation, if not imperative, in all aspirants to a position in the Factory, and as a rule merchants sent their sons, and not their clerks, to act as their factors, as they in their turn had been sent by their fathers.

The Levant was regarded as a pernicious station. Moryson, a traveller of about 1600, says that European merchants or factors established at Aleppo seldom returned home, "the twentieth man scarcely living till, his prentiship being out, he may trade here for himself." A hundred years later the conditions of life were somewhat better, to judge by Dr. Russell's account of the Factory.

more

The colony of Englishmen at Larnaca and Ormidhia differed from the older Aleppo Factory in that it consisted of merchants living a family life. The semicollegiate "Khan," with its unmarried young men,* was not known in Cyprus. Apropos of this, a curious souvenir of long ago was recently picked up at Larnaca: it is an old posy-ring or betrothal token, a "Baffo diamond," on which is engraved within an oval the representation of a fantastic altar Around the margin supporting two hearts. are the words LOVE VNIGHT VS (sic). It looks like native workmanship, such as some

* Vide Maundrell's 'Journey.'

Aleppo was the centre of the business operations of the "Levant Company," or Company of Merchants trading in the Seas of the Levant," founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1581, which remained in the enjoyment of its profitable privileges until 1825. Cyprus rose into importance as a factory of the Company during the eighteenth century. Smyrna also belongs to the later period, and continues as the centre of the Levant trade of modern days. The consular district of Aleppo embraced various Vice-Consulates, not necessarily permanent, of which Cyprus (Larnaca) was perhaps one of the most important.

The Cyprus Vice-Consulate may be traced back to 1626, but the actual English Colony and Factory of Larnaca can only be said to synchronize with the course of the eighteenth century. There are no records preserved separately of the Cyprus ViceConsulate, but many stray documents referring to it are to be found amongst the Letter-Books, &c., of the Aleppo Consulate removed, as mentioned above, to the Public Record Office, London, in 1910. The oldest of these books contains a reference under the date 22 July, 1626, to “Petro Savioni, Nro V. Consolo in Cipro." As was frequently the case at that period, the entries are in the Italian language.

The first record of a regular consular appointment in Cyprus is: At the Court of Assistants of 19 May, 1636, a letter was read from Mr. Glover, "who hath taken upon him the Consulship of Cyprus," asking for the Levant Company's approbation. At the General Court of 2 June, 1636, Glover was appointed Vice-Consul, subordinate to the Consul of Aleppo (vide Epstein's Early History' of Levant Company, p. 216).

M. D'Arvieux (‘Mémoires '), going out to Grand Aleppo as the representative of the Monarque" in 1675, describes the seas of Cyprus as infested by Tripoli (Africa) and Majorcan corsairs. Whilst anchored in Larnaca Bay he was fêted by all the resident Europeans in the island with sumptuous

feastings, and on his arrival and departure being infringed, and a great deal of trouble was honoured with the customary salvos of artillery. At this period Cyprus appears to have been colonized chiefly by merchants of the French Levant Company.

the interior title-page; but two notes of
exclamation have been inserted in this
line in two places, perhaps to call attention
to the two cryptograms about to follow in
the next two numbers. (The previous
number-55-contained
one dagger in-
serted in like fashion.) In the two follow-
ing numbers the head-line consisted of a
composition of signs-asterisks, daggers, &c.
(still in use)-in lieu of the flower.

then went the round: Will you have a small or a large piece? Small pieces were, it need not be told, the fashion, and that [sic] the two dishes subsequently became more than amply sufficient." After referring to a slight illness, he continues:

"Numb. 58" (sic) for 25 Sept.-2 Oct., attainment as ever. 1648, commenced as follows:

:

"Numb. 59" for 2-9 Oct., 1648, com- misapplied, I forget; not to its legitimate purpose, menced:

*

[**]*

"At this time the master was so ill of consumption that all the boys were sent home to their friends excepting myself. I had my liberty, and ranged about wherever I liked. Had I had enough to eat I should not have been so ill off, but a sufficiency was just as difficult of I have a vivid recollection of picking out from among (the) pig's meat some baked potatoes which had been thrown amongst it. To do such a thing as this a lad must have been pretty well pinched. Our pocket-money was taken from us, and how applied, or rather one may safely swear. My friends had given me certainly more than enough-I had upwards of three pounds. I was ten years old, and eighteenpence is all I had the spending of. We dared not ask for it. How ill off we were kept in this particular may be known from the circumstance of paper which was for a boy to write a letter to his friends to let them know how ill-used we were. Some boys ran away. I wrote a few lines on a bit of paper torn from a book with a pencil, and sealed (it) with cobbler's wax, which I dispatched to an old servant whom [sic] I knew lived in London. By some strange fatality it reached its destination, but somehow or other the information never reached home in time to do any good. When, however, I was packed off, my appearance proved the truth of my complaints. The hunger and starvation I endured had (a) most serious effect on my growth. I was very small for my age, I grew none, and for some years after I continued to be nothing but skin and bone."

The next number of Mercurius Melan-that we could not muster a penny to buy a sheet cholicus was marked "Num. 58, 59, 60, 61, 62," but contains nothing else noticeable. The periodical then seems to have ceased until 1 Jan., 1649, when it recommenced with No. 1. Probably all three writers had been caught, and a new writer then took up the periodical. I do not think that any other cryptograms ever appeared in it. Can any one explain them? They may have been messages from the printer to the writer. J. B. WILLIAMS.

"Yorkshire, I believe, is the place where schools are kept after the Squeers fashion. Where it had been learned is more than I know, but in some respects, especially the starving department, had been well conned (? cond). The quality of our victuals was not to be complained of, but the quantity was something less than very short allowance. I have seen the greater part of a leg of mutton go out after serving twenty hungry lads, the master, and two of his sisters, who were not stinted, of course. Rice puddings-or, rather, rice baked in milk, in which even currants at mile stone distances were not-were standing dishes but of these we were not allowed a sufficiency. They used to be served after the old fashionbefore meat-for an intelligible reason enough, for without their aid a solitary leg of mutton must have become a very skeleton.

"Indifferent, or insipid rather, as they were, we devoured our portions ravenously enough. I apprehend the rapid disappearance of two small dishes of this mess had put our feeder on his mettle, for one day he issued the following as a standing rule : 'Those boys who will have a small piece first shall not be helped twice.' He

haven, and the school described apparently The writer was, I infer, born at Whiteexisted at St. Bees.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

SUMPTUARY LAW IN 1736.-In bygone days a paternal Government prescribed what garments we might or might not wear while we were alive, and what material we might or might not be buried in after we were dead.

An instance of the former is afforded by the following paragraph, which I have copied from The London Daily Post and General Advertiser for the above year :

"On Tuesday last an Information upon__Oath was made by Mr. Morris, Linnen Draper in Fetter Lane, before Col. De Veil in Leicester - Fields, against the Wife of Mr. Benjamin Field of Piccadilly, Vintner, for having worn within the space of six days last past, an India Chintz Callicoe Gown; which is prohibited by Act of Parliament; whereupon she was summoned by Mr. De Veil to come and make her Defence against the Accusation; instead of which she confess'd the Fact, and was convicted, pursuant to the Statute in that Case made and provided; which makes the