is a very common surname in this parish:  there was, however, Tobias Chalfont, Rector of Giston, who died 1631.  “Chal” appears to be a common prefix.  In Chalfont (St. Peter’s) is an inscription to Sir Robert Hamson, Vycar, alluded to in Boutell’s Brasses.  In a cupboard under the gallery staircase is a copper helmet, which, prior to the church having been beautified in 1822, was suspended on an iron bracket with a bit of rag, as it then looked, to the best of my memory.  I have heard that it belonged to the family of Gould of Oak End, extinct.

A.C.

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Hobit, a measure of corn in Wales; what is the derivation?

A.C.

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REPLIES.

DR. PERCY AND THE POEMS OF THE EARL OF SURREY.

I have the means of showing what Dr. Percy did with the poems of the Earl of Surrey, because I have a copy of the work now before me.

It can hardly be said that he “prepared an edition” of those poems, as supposed by your correspondent “G.” on the authority of Watts’s Bibliotheca Britannica, but he made an exact reprint of the Songes and Sonnettes written by the Right Honorable Lorde Henry Haward, late Earle of Surrey, and other, which was printed Apud Richardum Tottell.  Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum. 1557.  The Bishop of Dromere made no attempt at editing the work much beyond what was necessary to secure an exact reimpression.  He prefixed no Life of Surrey (a point “G.” wishes to ascertain); and, in fact, the book was never completed.  It contains considerably more than the reprint of the poems of Lord Surrey, and was intended to consist of two volumes with separate pagination; the first volume extending to p. 272., and the second to p. 342.

As the work is a rarity, owing to an unfortunate accident, some of your readers may like to see a brief notice of it.  Watts (as quoted by “G.” for I have not his portly volumes at hand,) states that the “whole impression” was “consumed in the fire which took place in Mr. Nicholls’s premises in 1808.”  This was a mistake, as my extant copy establishes; and Restituta (iii. 451.) informs us that four were saved.  Of the history of my own impression I know nothing beyond the fact, that I paid a very high price for it some twenty years since, at an auction; but the late Mr. Grenville had another copy, which I had an opportunity of seeing, and which had belonged to T. Park, and had been sent to him by Dr. Percy for the advantage of his notes and remarks.  This, I presume, is now in the British Museum; whither it came with the rest of Mr. Grenville’s books, four or five years ago.