Various

“ Irish Language in the West Indies.—The atrocities which Oliver Cromwell committed in Ireland are fresh in the memory of the poorest Irishman, and his memory held in the deepest execration: every ruined fortress that we pass is ascribed to the great castle-killer, and the peasant's bitterest malediction is, "Mallachd Crumwell ort" (The curse of Cromwell on you) . ”

“ We hear of the clerical proctors being occasionally present in the House of Commons in the earlier part of our history; and we may reasonably infer that they would not have been so present unless they had a right to have been there. If they had that right, then they were a part of parliament. They certainly had that right by the clause Præmunientes so often referred to, "according to antient usage;" but they waived the exercise of it, on finding it more advantageous to deliberate by themselves. ”

“ If they were representative of the clergy, as a third estate and degree, no act of parliament could be good if they did wholly disassent; and yet they have disassented, and the law good and in force, as in the Act for establishing the Book of Common Prayer in Queen Elizabeth's time. ”

“ Next they advanced that they had no need of a licence to enter upon debates and to prepare matters, though it was confessed that the practice for a hundred years was against them; but they thought the Convocation lay under no further restraint than that the Parliament was under; and as they could pass no Act without the Royal assent, so they confessed that they could not enact or publish a Canon without the King's licence. ”

“ It will be obvious, then, and plain to the reader of the above passage, that when the clergy were summoned by this clause Præmunientes, in the writ directed to the archbishops, they were summoned to be a part of Parliament; but the King's writ was that which made Convocation what it was—which made it a legal, constitutional, parliamentary assembly, with definite power and authority—instead of a simple synodical meeting of the clergy, whose influence would be solely moral or ecclesiastical. ”

“ Jacob Grimm, which is appended to the Commissioners' Report, he well describes the benefits which will result from this measure of justice to the literature of Ireland. "To the historians and philologists of Europe," observes Dr. Grimm, "a valuable and important monument of Irish antiquity remains as yet shut up. It is only suitable to the dignity of the Irish and British nation to effect the publication of the Brehon Laws, as has been already accomplished in the case of the laws of Wales." ”

“ The guildhall of Leicester cannot boast of any outside show. It is plain to meanness in this respect; it is on one side a mere barn in appearance; yet it has its claim on the attention of the antiquary.
The first distinct mention of a guildhall in Leicester is in a small charter, executed in the mayoralty of Peter Rogerson. From this it appears that in 1250 William Ordriz, the son of Stephen, conveyed to the mayor and burgesses a building which became the guildhall. ”

“ But for the misfortune of living a century and a quarter too late, I should doubtless often have found myself in the same box with the mysterious man, with his piles of books, and his maps of Madagascar, invitingly displayed for the examination of the curious, and the satisfaction of the sceptical. ”

“ I look upon most places of attendance at Court to be an idle, loytering, empty course of life; in which a man is obliged to dress expensively, keep frothy, vain, or vicious company, and to have the salary more backwardly paid than in other places. ”

“ Some survivors would surely, in respect to the memory of such a noble and honourable person, not totally disregard what he had so distinguished; but think a man worthy of being recommended to some provision, whom he, after a very deliberate experience, had seen reason so decently to provide for. ”

“ The Corpus Christi Hall would appear to have been enlarged when it was fairly in the hands of the civic authorities, not only in the reign of Elizabeth (about the year 1586) , but in that of Charles I. Many particulars about the building will be found in the Handbook of Leicester.
The guildhall of Leicester is within one of the most picturesque old structures of the country, and is well described by your correspondent Kt. As you enter, its rude rafters rise directly from the ground on either hand, and embrace over the head of the visitor, forming pointed arches. ”

“ As the word is most frequently employed in newspaper paragraphs, in describing accidents arising from the restiveness, or much more frequently restlessness, of horses, we can easily account for the misuse of the word in such cases: as the free use of the whip, which is sure to follow the restiveness of a horse or ass, is almost as surely followed by a sudden restlessness, at least when the nobler animal is under chastisement; what ends in restlessness and running away has thus got confounded with what it only has become, in some cases ”

“ REASON AND UNDERSTANDING ACCORDING TO COLERIDGE.
There is a remarkable discrepancy in the statements of Coleridge respecting reason and understanding.
(1.) Friend, vol. i. pp. 207-8. (Pickering.) —
"That many animals possess a share of understanding perfectly distinguishable from mere instinct we all allow. Few persons have a favourite dog, without making instances of its intelligence an occasional topic of conversation. ”

“ Blencowe's former plain but excellent volumes will be glad to receive the third series of his 'Plain Sermons addressed to a Country Congregation,' similar in character and texture to the two series which have preceded it."—Guardian.
"Their style is simple; the sentences are not artfully constructed; and there is an utter absence of all attempt at rhetoric. The language is plain Saxon language, from which 'the men on the wall' can easily gather what it most concerns them to know.
"Again, the range of thought is not high and difficult, but level and easy for the wayfaring man to follow. ”

“ I have been assured by persons of experience, that an handsome post is not only sooner procured as having less candidates, but a man's pretension is more regarded. Whereas, in business of ordinary or mean account, his merits and abilities are thought proportionable, and therefore his pretension or request is less regarded. ”

“ I must therefore again ask leave to defend the view which I advanced in Vol. iv., p. 115., and will endeavour, whether it be a right or wrong one, to express my arguments in support of it so definitely and distinctly as not again to leave room for any misapprehension of them. To adopt Canon. Ebor.'s threefold division:—
1. The Three Estates of the Realm are the Nobility, the Clergy in Convocation, and the Commons. In this order they are ranked in the collect I quoted, and in which they are described as "assembled in parliament;" i. e. en plein parlement. ”

“ The same order is observed in Sir Edward Coke's speech on Garnet's trial:—
"For the persons offended, they were these:—the King ... the Queen ... the noble Prince; ... then the whole royal issue. The Council, the Nobility, the Clergy; nay, our whole religion itself," &c.
And if Canon. Ebor. wishes for a more decisive authority on the matter, he will find it in An Act for granting Royal Aid unto the King's Majesty, passed in 1664.
2. The Convocations of the Clergy ARE a part of the Parliament. This fact, and its importance, has been generally overlooked or disregarded by writers on Convocation. ”

“ After the reduction of Ireland by Cromwell and his {538}myrmidons, the thousands who were 'shipped to the Caribbees,' so these islands were then called, 'and sold as slaves,' carried with them their language. That they preserved, and there it remains to this day."
Will some of your correspondents acquainted with the West Indies inform me if the Irish language be still spoken there, or if it be degenerated and merged into the talkee-talkee, or negro jargon? ”

“ A Photographic Query.—Is it probable that the number of stones and marbles which, without the aid of art, represent human and other figures, may have been natural photographs from the reflection of objects in a strong glare of sunlight? ”

“ After my unfortunate adventures in the South Sea, my long and expensive law-suits for the recovery of my right, and five years' retirement to a nobleman's in the country, with whom I had been intimate in my youth, I became, in less than two years after my return to London, first known to the Earl of Oxford in the year 1731; when he invited me to show him my collections of MSS. Historical and Political, which had been the Earl of Clarendon's; my collections of Royal Letters, and other Papers of State ”

“ But we have buildings yet standing among us which, if less imposing in their exteriors, are nevertheless associated with historic memories of no common order, and secondary in this respect to none of the grander town-halls of ancient Flanders. ”

“ They call for our admiration of the individual animal, and not with exclusive reference to the wisdom in nature, as in the case of στοργὴ, or maternal instinct: or of the hexangular cells of the bees.... We hear little or nothing of the instincts of the 'half-reasoning elephant,' and as little of the understanding of caterpillars and butterflies. ”

“ In the writ that the bishops had, summoning them to Parliament, the clause, known by the first word of it, 'Præmunientes,' was still continued. At first, by virtue of it, the inferior clergy were required to come to Parliament, and to consent to the aids there given: but after the archbishops had the provincial writ for a Convocation of the province, the other was no more executed, though it was still kept in the writ, and there did not appear the least shadow of any use that had been made of it, for some hundreds of years ”