Various

“ And so, with all the earnestness and heartiness which befit this happy season, when
"No spirit stirs abroad;
The nights are wholesome; when no planet strikes,
No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time,"
do we greet all our friends, whether contributors or readers, with the good old English wish,
A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
SIR E. DERING'S HOUSEHOLD BOOK.
The muniment chests of our old established families are seldom without their quota of "household books." ”

“ In some future number, too, if acceptable to your readers, you shall be furnished with a list of other and better objects of expenditure from this household book; for Sir Edward, albeit, as Clarendon depicts him, the victim of his own vanity, was worthy of better fame than is yet been his lot to acquire.
He was a most accomplished scholar and a learned antiquary. He had his foibles, it is true, but they were redeemed by qualities of high and enduring excellence. The eloquence of his parliamentary speeches has elicited the admiration of Southey; to praise them therefore now were superfluous. ”

“ It is with no slight feelings of pride and satisfaction that we record the fact of a large impression of a work like the present not having been sufficient to meet the demand,—a work devoted not to the witcheries of poetry or to the charms of romance, but to the illustration of matters of graver import, such as obscure points of national history, doubtful questions of literature and bibliography, the discussion of questionable etymologies, and the elucidation of old world customs and observances. ”

“ The two words are transposed, and bee annexed as being perhaps thought more seemly in such a connection than fly-bug or beetle. The dignified ecclesiastics in ancient times wore brilliant mixtures of colours in their habits. Bishops had scarlet and black, as this insect has on its wing-covers. Some remains of the finery of the gravest personages still exist on our academical robes of ceremony. There is something inconsistent with the popish episcopal character in the childish rhyme with which Bishop Barnabee is thrown up and dismissed when he happens to light on any one's hand. ”

“ Goodly collections of these often turn up, with records of the expenditure and the "doings" of the household, through a period of two or more centuries. These documents are of incalculable value in giving us a complete insight into the domestic habits of our ancestors. Many a note is there, well calculated to illustrate the pages of the dramatist or the biographer, and even the accuracy of the historian's statements may often be tested by some of the details which find their way into these accounts; as for the more peculiar province of the antiquary, there is always a rich store of materials. ”

“ While F.E. furnishes us with another and happier version of the Norfolk popular rhyme:—
"Bishop, Bishop Barnabee,
Tell me when my wedding be;
If it be to-morrow day,
Take your wings and fly away!
Fly to the east, fly to the west,
Fly to them that I love best!"
The name which this pretty insect bears in the various languages of Europe is clearly mythic. In this, as in other cases, the Virgin has supplanted Freya; so that Freyjuhaena and Frouehenge have been changed into Marienvoglein, which corresponds with Our Lady's Bird. ”

“ Here he subsequently resided and died: but it seems the charm had a passive as well as an active power; his throes of death were long and violent; and though dissolution seemed every moment impending, still he lingered in ceaseless agony, till the Archbishop, who was called to his bed-side to administer the last sacred rites, perceiving the cause, caused the lake to be dragged, and, silently restoring the talisman to the person of the dying monarch, his struggling soul parted quietly away. ”

“ We believe that it is under the impulse of such feelings that they have flocked to our columns—that the sentiment has found its echo in the breast of the public, and hence that success which has attended our humble efforts. ”

“ Comments upon these dishes occur in other works of a recent period, but having left my portfolio, concerning them, with other papers, on the continent, I give these hasty notices entirely from memory. They are by no means uncommon now in England, as the notices of your correspondents prove. A paper on three varieties of them at Hull was read in 1829, to the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. In Nash's Worcestershire one is depicted full size, and a reduced copy given about this period in the Gentleman's Magazine, and Nash first calls them "Offertory Dishes." ”

“ It was no doubt by his dread of the sleepless watch of Hutton, that so unscrupulous a person as Colonel Watson is proved to be, was deterred from publishing Simpson's work as his own.
The desideratum here is, of course, to find what became of Colonel Watson's papers; and then to ascertain whether this and what other writings of Simpson's are amongst them. A really good work on the mathematical theory of bridges, if such is ever to exist, has yet to be published. ”

“ There are, I fancy, few classes of papers that would be so little likely to interest archæologists in general, as those relating to mathematics; and yet such are not unlikely to fall in their way, often and largely, if they would take the trouble to secure them. I will give an example or two, indicating the kind of papers which are desiderata to the mathematical historian.
1. A letter from Dr. Robert Simson, the editor of Euclid and the restorer of the Porisms, to John Nourse of the Strand, is missing from an otherwise unbroken series, extending from 1 Jan. ”

“ I shall be glad to learn from any of your readers what part of the northern bank of the river, between Blackwall and the Tower, was called Dick Shore. It is not marked on any of the old maps of London I have been able to consult; but it was probably beyond the most easterly point generally shown within their limits. The modern maps present no trace of the locality in question.
The dock-yard visited by Pepys was long one of the most considerable private ship-building establishments in England. ”

“ That evidence is more likely to be found mixed up amongst the masses of papers belonging to systematic collectors than amongst the papers of mere mathematicians—amongst men who never destroy a paper because they have no present use for it, or because the subject does not come within the range of their researches, than amongst men who value nothing but a "new theorem" or "an improved solution." ”

“ The most mischievous urchins are afraid to hurt the dowdy-cow, believing if they did evil would inevitably befall them. It is tenderly placed on the palm of the hand—of a girl, if possible—and the above rhyme recited thrice, during which it usually spreads its wings, and at the last word flies away. ”

“ I would venture to suggest that a corner of your paper might sometimes be profitably reserved for "notes" from these household books; there can be little doubt that your numerous readers would soon furnish you with abundant contributions of most interesting matter. ”

“ The tract was not written in reply to the Characteristics, but was an answer to an anonymous letter published in the Daily Post-Boy of September 9th, 1732, which letter Berkeley has reprinted at the end of his pamphlet. The only allusion to the writer of this letter which bears the slightest tinge of severity occurs at the commencement of the tract. Those who will take the trouble of perusing the anonymous letter, will see that it was richly deserved; and I think it can scarcely, with any justice, be censured as unbecomingly harsh, or in any degree unwarranted. ”

“ Our correspondent who inquired respecting the Life and Diary of Haydon the Painter, is informed that its publication is suspended for the present.
We have to explain to correspondents who inquire as to the mode of procuring "NOTES AND QUERIES," that every bookseller and newsman will supply it if ordered, and that gentlemen residing in the country may be supplied regularly with the Stamped Edition, by giving their orders direct to the publisher, MR. GEORGE BELL, 186. ”

“ Mr. Editor,—Allow me, in addition to the Note inserted in your 4th Number, in answer to the Query of LEGOUR, by your correspondent (and I believe my friend) J.G., to give the following extract from Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia:—
"Bishop Barnabee-s. The pretty insect more generally called the Lady-bird, or May-bug. It is one of those highly favoured among God's harmless creatures which superstition protects from wanton injury. ”

“ As I am much interested in the subject to which this publication refers, may I ask for information on three points?—1. What evidence is there of this edition of 1536, beyond the statement in Ames? 2. What has become of the copy of the edition of 1540, formerly belonging to Herbert? and, 3. Who are the persons who peruse and revise the latter edition? There is not copy of either edition, as far as I can trace, in the British Museum, in the Bodleian, or at Lambeth. ”

“ Mr. Editor,—On pp. 63. and 78. of your columns inquiry is made for Burney's Treatise on Music (not his History) . Before correspondents trouble you with their wants, I think they should be certain that the books they inquire for have existence. Dr. Burney never published, or wrote, a Treatise on Music. His only works on the subject (the General History of Music excepted) are the following:—
"The Present State of Music in France and Italy. ”

“ We have received many other communications respecting the epithet of this insect—so great a favourite with children. ALICUI and several other correspondents incline to L.B.L.'s opinion that it takes its name from a fancied resemblance of its bright wing-cases to the episcopal cope or chasuble. J.T. reminds us that St. Barnabas has been distinguished of old by the title of bright, as in the old proverbial distich intended to mark the day of his festival according to the Old Style (21st June) :—
"Barnaby bright! ”

“ John's House there, but I believe without any notice taken of them in its Proceedings; and another was shown to the Archæological Society, at their last Chester Congress, by Colonel Biddulph, at Chirk Castle; when more were mentioned by the visitors as in their possession, anxious as your correspondents to know the import of the inscriptions. They are sometimes seen exposed in the shops of Wardour Street, and in other curiosity shops of the metropolis.
On their sunken centres all have religious types: the most common is the temptation of Eve ”

“ The most usual is that alluded to by your correspondents, and though obviously German, neither old nor obsolete; having been viewed even by native decipherers, through the mist of a preconceived hypothesis, have never yet been by them satisfactorily accounted for. It is always repeated four times, evidently from the same slightly curved die ”

“ Sir Henry Herbert was Master of the Revels to King James the First, and the two succeeding kings, and the said MS. contains an account of almost every piece exhibited at any of the theatres from August, 1623, to the commencement of the rebellion in 1641. Malone, in his Historical Account of the English Stage (edit. Boswell, iii. 57.) , says, in a note—
"For the use of this very curious and valuable manuscript I am indebted to Francis Ingram, of Ribbisford, near Bewdley, in Worcestershire, Esq., Deputy Remembrancer in the Court of the Exchequer. ”

“ Dyce, with his clear sight, did not see that the very word he wanted was the next word before him. It puts one in mind of a man looking for his spectacles who has them already across his nose. "Wanton" is a noun as well as an adjective ”

“ The readings of some of your correspondents who understand German is pretty near the truth. {136} I have before said that the centre type of Eve's Temptation is the most common, and to it the words especially refer, and seem at the place of their manufacture (most probably Nuremburg) to have been used for other centres without any regard to its fitness. The letters, as I can safely aver from some very perfect specimens, are ”

“ Note b. upon this passage is as follows:—
"This very portrait of King Charles the First, engraved by Marshall, adorned the original edition of the [Greek: Eikon Basilikae] . 8vo. 1648. The same portrait, as large as life, in oil painting, was afterwards put up in many of our churches."
When I was a boy, such a portrait, in oil painting, hung upon the south wall of the body of St. Michael's Church, Cambridge, between the pulpit and a small door to the west, leading into the south aisle. ”

“ Perhaps, indeed, the rhyme has been fabricated long since the name by some one who did not think of such niceties."
G.A.C.
Sir,—In the explanation of the term Bishop Barnaby, given by J.G., the prefix "Bishop" seems yet to need elucidation. Why should it not have arisen from the insect's garb? The full dress gown of the Oxford D.D.—scarlet with black velvet sleeves—might easily have suggested the idea of naming the little insect "Dr. Burn bug," and the transition is easy to "Dr. ”