_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 Ecclesiæ_, 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, if the following extract may be relied on: "The well-known epitaph of the celebrated Countess of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney, has been generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. The first stanza is printed in Jonson's poems; but it is found in the manuscript volume of poems by William Browne, the author of _Britannia's Pastorals_, preserved in the Lansdown Collection, British Museum, No. 777., and on this evidence may be fairly appropriated to him, particularly as it is known that he was a great favourite with William, Earl of Pembroke, son of the Countess."--_Relics of Literature_: London, Boys, 1823, p. 60. ALFRED GATTY.