_Venville_ (Vol. iii., p. 38.).--R. E. G. inquires respecting the origin of this word, as applied to certain tenants round Dartmoor Forest. The name is peculiar to that district, and is applied chiefly to certain _vills_ or villages (for the most part also parishes), and to certain tenements within them, which pay fines to the Lord of Lidford and Dartmoor, viz. the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall. The fines are supposed to be due in respect either of rights of common on the forest, or of trespasses committed by cattle on it; for the point is a _vexata quaestio_ between the lord and tenants of Dartmoor and the tenants of the Venville lands, which lie along the boundaries of it. {153} In the accounts rendered to the lord of these fines, there was a distinct title, headed _"Fines Villarum"_ when these accounts were in Latin; and I think it cannot be doubted that the lands and tenures under this title came to be currently called _Finevill_ lands from this circumstance. Hence Fenvill, Fengfield, or Venvill; the last being now the usual spelling and pronunciation. R. E. G. may see a specimen of these accounts, and further observations on them, in Mr. Rowe's very instructive _Perambulation of Dartmoor_, published a year or two ago at Plymouth. E. S. _Cum Grano Salis_ (Vol. iii., p. 88.) simply means, with a grain of allowance; spoken of propositions which require qualification. The Cambridge man's explanation, therefore, does not suit the meaning. I have always supposed that salis was added to denote a small grain. I find in Forcellini that the Romans called a small flaw in crystals _sal_. C. B. _Hoops_ (Vol. iii., p. 88.).--The examples given in Johnson's article _Farthingale_ will sufficiently answer the question. Farthingales are mentioned in Latimer with much indignant eloquence: "I trow Mary had never a verdingale." If the question had been, not whether they were in use as early as 1651, but whether they were in use in 1651, perhaps there would have been more difficulty, for they do not appear in Hollar's dresses, 1640. C. B. _Cranmer's Descendants_ (Vol. iii., p. 8.).--It may be of some interest to C. D. F. to be informed, that the newspapers of the time recorded the death of Mr. Bishop Cranmer of Wivelescombe, co. Somerset, on the 8th April, 1831, at the age of eighty-eight. He is said to have been a direct descendant of the martyred archbishop, to whose portraits he bore a strong personal resemblance. J. D. S. _Shakspeare's Use of the Word "Captious"_ (Vol. ii., p. 354.).--Why may not the word have the same meaning as it has now? A _captious_ person is not primarily a deceitful person, but either one who catches at any argument to uphold his own cause, or, more generally, one who catches or cavils at arguments or expressions used by another, and fastens a frivolous objection on them; one who takes exception to a point on paltry and insufficient grounds: