Ward. A common name; but the thing has been much, though not entirely, disused, since the abolition of the court of wards and liveries. Wards there are yet of the court of chancery. 1772, Oct. I am, &c. T. Row LXXIII. Origin of the word Lady. MR. URBAN, As I have studied more what appertains to the ladies than to the gentlemen, I will satify you how it came to pass that women of fortune were called ladies, even before their husbands had any title to convey that mark of distinction to them. You must know, then, that heretofore it was the fashion for those families whom God had blessed with affluence, to live constantly at their mansion-houses in the country, and that once a week, or oftener, the lady of the manor distributed to her poor neighbours, with her own hands, a certain quantity of bread, and she was called by them the Leff-day, i. e. in Saxon, the bread-giver. These two words were in time corrupted, and the meaning is now as little known as the practice which gave rise to it; yet it is from that hospitable custom, that, to this day, the ladies in this kingdom alone, serve the meat at their own tables. I am, Sir, &c. &c. 1772, June. LXXIV. Pigs of Lead. §1. An ancient Pig of Lead discovered on Hints Common. MR. URBAN, As some workmen were digging for gravel, last winter, on Hints Common, about three quar-4 32 ters of a mile north from the Watling-street-road, they discovered at the depth of four feet from the surface of the earth, a pig of lead, one hundred and fifty pounds weight, with an inscription cast in basso relievo, surrounded by a border of an equal height.Through favour of the possessor, Ralph Floyer, Esq. I have been permitted to measure and make an exact drawing of this monument of antiquity, which I have herewith. sent you, not doubting of your readiness to oblige your antiquarian readers with a representation of it in your Magazine, to whom it is also submitted for an explanation, by, Your humble servant, Litchfield, Oct. 17. P.S. Hints, called by the Saxons HENDON, (or Old Town) is a pleasant village, whose lofty situation commands a very extensive prospect of the counties of Stafford, Leicester, and Derby; it is about four miles from Litchfield, and three from Tamworth. Near the church, which is prebendal, there is a very large tumulus, not long since planted over with firs. 1772, Dec. MR. URBAN, WE are infinitely obliged to Mr. Floyer for communicating to the public the very ancient block of lead discovered upon Hints Common, Com. Staff. A. D. 1771, and to Mr. Green, whose accuracy in those things is well known to you, and may be thoroughly depended upon, for presenting us with an exact drawing of it. This block, so perfect in all its parts, and a remnant of such remote antiquity, may be esteemed a most admirable curiosity. The inscription is to be read Imperatore Vespasiano septimùm, Tito Imperatore quintum, Consulibus, and plainly betokens the year of Christ 76, U. C. 828, when, viz. before the kalends of July, Vespasian and Titus were consuls, the first the 7th, and the other the 5th time*. Titus, the son, is here called emperor as well as his father, having been associated by his father in the government of the empiret; and this block of lead is now, A. D. 1773, 1697 years old. The weight of the piece is 150lb. avoirdupois, this being, I presume, that species of weight with which the gentlemen tried it. The pound avoirdupois is heavier, as all know, than the Troy pound, and the Troy pound is heavier than the Roman pound, in the proportion of 1560 grains to 1256; insomuch that it weighed more than 150 pounds Roman weight. But this is of no consequence, as little would be learned from it, though one should be at the pains of computing the exact Roman weight of it to a scruple. Suffice it therefore to say, in regard to this point, that it was of a proper size (223 inches long,) and weight, for loading and unloading, and a suitable burthen for a small horse, such as, I imagine, the British horses then were; and especially in bad roads§, as we may suppose the ways in our island certainly to have been before the military roads were formed, which was not done till many years after the reign of Vespasian. The figure of the piece is incommodious; the size, indeed, 22 inches, was convenient enough for lifting; and the weight was sufficiently manageable by a man in loading: but as the bottom was broader than the top, the inscription being undoubtedly put on the uppermost and most visible side when out of the mould, this of course would make it troublesome either in taking up or laying down. The letters, and the border round, were impressed, I conceive, by an engraven stamp of iron, applied whilst the metal was hot, if not placed at the bottom of the form or mould, and consequently the die must have been renewed every year, the date annually varying. The person that marked the piece was certainly the Roman director, or superintendant of the Fasti Consulares, p. 79. + Universal History, XV. p. 28. Greaves's Works, I. p. 305. The face of the country was then overgrown with woods, and the paths were both narrow, and but little beaten. mine and furnace, and the stamp was intended to shew, in the way of a certificate, that the block had either paid the proper tribute, or was of the due weight, or of legal purity, or lastly, was added for a reason to be given below. As this piece was smelted so long since as the year 76, this may lead us to inquire more minutely into the history of lead in this island; as also into the country whence this piece in particular came. To judge from Cæsar's silence, there was no plumbum nigrum, or lead, in Britain, when he was here; nor does Strabo, or Diodorus Siculus, as I think, take notice of any. But this notwithstanding, I am of opinion, that the Britons had mines of this metal long before. Cæsar staid but a short time in the island on either of his expedi tions, and could know little or nothing of the mountainous parts of it, where the lead mines usually are, and which in general were very remote. Strabo and Diodorus knew something, and yet not much more than he did. And it appears, from certain particulars, to come to something more positive, that lead was probably gotten here before Cæsar's invasion. According to Bede, piles armed with lead, and driven into the bed of the river Thames, were the defensive efforts of Cassivallannus, to obstruct the passage of that river by Julius Cæsart: and if so, lead was unquestionably the product of the island at that time, and probably long before. This though, perhaps, may be a doubtful fact; and therefore we shall seek out for something more certain. John Leland mentions a plate of lead, or trophy as he calls it, older than this in question, dug up near the lead mines in Somersetshire, and inscribed with the name of the Emperor Claudius, in the 9th year of his tribunitial powert, or A. D. 49; which surely must have been gotten and smelted by the Britons. Claudius came bither but A. D. 44, when the Legionaries, totally unused to such employments, wanted the necessary skill for opening and working of mines, and manufacturing of ore, even supposing they were informed there was lead in the island. Besides, they had important business of another and very different kind upon their hands, subduing the country and making settlements in it, and therefore were not likely to turn their thoughts towards such undertakings, which are Lead was called plumbum nigrum to distinguish it from tin, or plumbum album. Beda. I. c. 2. Leland Assert. Arthuri, p. 45. in Tom, V. of the Collectanea. See also Dr. Musgrave's Works, I. p. 182. Dr. Musgrave, I. p. 182. The more adapted to people long established in a country, and abounding with leisure and opportunity. Dr. Musgrave, indeed, thinks the Romans might be employed in the mines, but it appears to me far more probable, that the natives wrought them A. D. 49, and that they had wrought them long, (how long is uncertain) and perhaps many centuries before. What further convinces me that lead was known to the Britons before either Claudius or Julius Cæsar's time, is its name, which appears to beCeltic. The Saxons, indeed, called this metal by the name of LEAD, whence we have our word: but then this seems to have been borrowed from the British, as the Saxons had probably no acquaintance with this metal till they came hither. In the Irish language, a dialect of the Celtic, and a-kin consequently to the British, lead is called Luaidhe, whence, as I think, the Saxons took their name. word mine is originally the British mwyn, which is explained by Mr. Richards, the ore of any metal; and it is certain that, in some places, the ore is called mine as well as the shaft is, where such ore is gotten. I infer, that, as the names of the metal, and of the ore whence it is extracted, and of the place where it is dug, are all of Celtic original, the Britons appear to have had the art of mining, and were the first that opened the earth for that purpose here, and that they had done this, in all probability, before the reign of Claudius, and even before the arrival of Julius Cæsar. This opinion receives some confirmation from the words of Pliny, xxxiv. cap. 17. 'Nigro plumbo ad fistulas laminasque utimur, laboriosiùs in Hispania eruto, totasque per Gallias: sed in Britannia summo terræ corio adeo large, ut lex ultro dicatur, ne plus certo modo fiat.' Pliny finished his work about U. C. 830, a little before his death, and not more than 32 years after the date of the Claudian inscription above, and yet his words imply, first, that lead could then be gotten here in any quantity; 2dly, that the Romans had then taken the management or regulation of the works into their own hands, and had passed a restraining act, in respect of quantity, about them. This act perhaps was made before A. D. 76. U. C. 828. and might be the cause of our block's being stamped, supposing, that is, that the said stamp was neither intended to denote that the piece had paid the tribute, nor to assure the purchaser of its legal weight and purity, as conjectured above. And 3dly, that mines, in all probability, had then been long wrought here, and even before the year 49, and, consequently, by the Britons before the Roman æra. The next point to be considered is the country whence |