“ A man with plenty of brains is otherwise to be described as a man of good parts. A surgeon may write on the brain, and study its anatomy, as being a single object, non-plural; but the vernacular will always have its “man of brains” for a clever fellow, and myself I cannot see why not. Literal views on such matters are always in danger of falling into literal nonsense. Language is a haphazard engine, that flashes a meaning, and leaves logic limping to rearward. ”

“ But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that reading and writing men, of moderate industry, who act on this rule for any considerable length of time, will accumulate a good deal of matter in various forms, shapes, and sizes—some more, some less legible and intelligible—some unposted in old pocket books—some on whole or half sheets, or mere scraps of paper, and backs of letters—some, lost sight of and forgotten, stuffing out old portfolios, or getting smoky edges in bundles tied up with faded tape. ”

“ But Nicholas made him promise that he would tell no man. And many other charitable works did Nicholas perform in his native city.'
"These three purses of gold, or, as they are more customarily figured, these three golden balls, disposed in exact pawnbroker fashion, are to this day the recognised special emblem of the charitable St. Nicholas." ”

“ The field in which the Duke concealed himself is still called "Monmouth Close." It is at the north-eastern extremity of the Island. An ash-tree, at the foot of which the would-be-king was found crouching in a ditch and half hid under the fern, was standing a few years ago, and was deeply indented with the carved initials of crowds of persons who had been to visit it. Mr. Macaulay has mentioned that the fields were covered—it was the eighth of July—with standing crops of rye, pease, and oats. In one of them, a field of pease, tradition tells us that the Duke dropped a gold snuff-box. ”

“ And, consequently, if, as is very likely, our Valentine’s Day is an English rendering of le jour des Valentins, we ought to write Valentines’ Day, as meaning the day of valentines, and not Valentine’s Day = the day of Valentine. And the absence of the word Saint points to this conclusion also, for I do not know that in this Protestant country a saint has been robbed of his saintship, as he has occasionally been in Catholic France. ”

“ They are always correcting what is not wrong, when often what is wrong they cannot see to be so. Still, although the word “circumstance” means an environment, it means a vast deal besides that. It means even a condition and state of affairs. You may correctly say, “A man is in good circumstances.” ”

“ A man may speak of a remarkable circumstance in history. There it is merely an incident, and incidents may be plural or singular. There is no rule in all this to be laid down. The less rule the better. A good stylist must decide in each particular instance. A cultivated judgment can abolish rules. ”

“ Utterson himself looked over the press, before he decided that he would not insert them. He sent them to me with a separate note, and wrote "cancelled" upon them.
We meet with a singular mistake on the threshold, where Barnefield's address to his readers, just after the mention of Spenser, is made to terminate thus:—
"I leave you to the reading of that, which I so much desire may need your delight."
Here "need" ought, of course, to be breed; and it is only by mishearing on the part of the scribe, or the compositor, that we can account for the blunder. ”

“ As a mass of observations it is really valuable; but the drifting into plurals which he condemns appears to me to lie at the root of right expression. Like much, or perhaps all, instructive wisdom, it runs dead contrary to logic. Logic never invented anything since the world began. ”

“ A Voyage with the Piskies.—About a mile to the eastward of us is a pretty bay, on the shores of which may be seen the picturesque church of Talland, the hamlet of Portallow, with its scattered farm-houses, and the green on which the children assemble at their sports. In old time, a lad in the employ of a farmer who occupied one of the homesteads was sent to our village to procure some little household necessaries from the shop. ”

“ The population is part seafaring, part agricultural, and in reference to education as well off as such people generally are. In this quiet corner lurk many remnants of faded creeds, and ancient usages which have vanished from districts more subject to mutation with the circumstances which gave rise to them, as the side eddies of a stream retain those sticks and straws which the current would have swept off to the ocean. ”

“ The Greek expresses the art of government by ἡ πολιτική, whilst τὰ πολιτικά is state affairs. Our “politics” represents the latter. When we talk of government, and the art of it, our word is far better than the Greek. Ἑ πολιτική is simply an adjective, τέχνη being understood ”

“ The cottages scattered over the heathy country on the boundaries of Dorsetshire and Hampshire were strictly examined by Lumley; and the clown with whom Monmouth had changed clothes was discovered. Portman came with a strong body of horse and foot to assist in the search. Attention was soon drawn to a place well suited to shelter fugitives. It was an extensive tract of land separated by an inclosure from the open country, and divided by numerous hedges into small fields. In some of these fields the rye, the pease, and the oats were high enough to conceal a man. ”

“ Half the lies that are current in the world owe their origin to a misplaced confidence in memory, rather than to intentional falsehood. We have never known more than one man who could deliberately and conscientiously say that his memory had never deceived him ”

“ Colman Grey.—A farmer, who formerly lived on an estate in our vicinity, was returning one evening from a distant part of the farm, when, in crossing a particular field, he saw, to his surprise, sitting on a stone in the middle of it, a miserable-looking little creature, human in appearance, though diminutive in size, and apparently starving with cold and hunger. ”

“ Utterson thus rendered to the students of our old poetry, was in some degree neutralized by inaccuracies I discovered. The mistakes, I am aware, grew out of the circumstance, that he usually employed a scribe to copy the original; who (like most scribes with whom I have had to do) was not as accurate as he ought to have been, and Mr. Utterson trusted too much to his fidelity. ”

“ What, are we Ethnicks that doe honour beasts?"
Instead of which, Guilpin wrote and printed:
".⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠.⁠What fooles are we,
So grossly to commit Idolatry!
What, are we Ethnicks, that we honour beasts?"
We will take another instance from Satire 4., where these lines occur:
"And dogged humor dog-dayes-like dothe prove,
Teaching loves glorious world with glowing tong."
For "teaching," of the reprint, the old copy has Scorching: love's glorious world was scorched with glowing tongue. ”

“ Utterson engaged a very good compositor. Those are commonly the best compositors who have most to do; and the person or persons who put together the letters for a private press, were not very likely to have enough work to keep them in constant employment. ”

“ A gentleman was one evening sitting cosily in his parlour, reading or meditating, when he was interrupted by the appearance of a cat, which came down the chimney, and called out, "Tell Dildrum Doldrum's dead!" ”

“ They interest themselves in man's affairs, now doing him a good turn, and anon taking offence at a trifle, and leading him into all manner of mischief. The rude gratitude of the husbandman is construed into an insult, and the capricious sprites mislead him on the first opportunity, and laugh heartily at his misadventures. They are great enemies of sluttery, and great encouragers of good husbandry. ”

“ Some cheap and frequent means for the interchange of thought s certainly wanted by those who are engaged in literature, art, and science, and we only hope to persuade the best men in all, that we offer them the best medium of communication with each other. ”

“ He is convinced that the want of specific acknowledgment will only be felt by those who have no idea of the labour and difficulty attendant on the hurried management of such a work, and of the impossibility of sometimes giving an explanation, when there really is one which would quite satisfy the writer, for the delay or non-insertion of his communication. ”

“ Thirty times the fugitives ventured to look through the outer hedge: but everywhere they found a sentinel on the alert: once they were seen and fired at; they then separated and concealed themselves in different hiding places. ”

“ Valentine’s Day.
I notice that all the correspondents of ‘N. & Q.’ who have troubled themselves about the derivation of the word valentine (See 3rd S. iii. 128; 5th S. v. 141; ix. 289, 418) agree in deriving it not from the name of the saint, but from galantin (=petit galant) , the g being changed into v. And this view they support either by quoting dictionaries of Norman patois, such as Dubois and Duméril, in which valentin is given =galantin, or other French authors who have written about Normandy, and who have expressed this opinion. ”

“ We do not anticipate any holding back by those whose "Notes" are most worth having, or any want of "Queries" from those best able to answer them. Whatever may be the case in other things, it is certain that those who are best informed are generally the most ready to communicate knowledge and to confess ignorance, to feel the value of such a work as we are attempting, and to understand that if it is to be well done they must help to do it. ”