Various

“ The great Englishman has condensed and intensified the expression of the concise and earnest Roman. This is one of those delightful obligations which repay themselves: Milton has more than returned the favour of the borrowed thought by lending it a heightened expression. ”

“ In jumped the elf. "Pretty bird!" chuckled the old Crocodile; "dost thee scent the fox?" This time she went straight home, and gave Jip to her daughter, with strict orders that she should cut off his noddle and boil it. When the time came for beginning the cooking, Miss One-eye led her captive to the chopping-block, and bade him lay down his head. "How?" quoth Jip; "I don't know how." "Like this, to be sure," said she; and, suiting the action to the word, she put her poll in the right position. Instantly the fairy seizes the hatchet, and serves her in the manner she intended to serve him. ”

“ If among the writers of the present day there is one whose opinion with regard to Robin Hood and the cycle of ballads of which that renowned outlaw is the hero would be looked for with anxiety and received with respect, it is the Rev. Joseph Hunter, a gentleman in whom are happily combined that thorough historical and antiquarian knowledge, and that sound poetic taste which are required to do justice to so interesting a theme. The announcement, therefore, that the fourth of Mr. Hunter's Critical and Historical Tracts is entitled The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood. ”

“ The consecration, or episcopal licence, seems to tie the burial ground to the burial service, except in the three cases of persons who die excommunicated, unbaptised, or by their own hands; and I imagine that a clergyman would render himself liable to suspension by his bishop, who either allowed interments to take place in the churchyard without the burial service, or, on the other hand, used the service in unconsecrated or unlicensed ground. ”

“ As I have always understood that the contrary is the case, and that the inhabitants of East Kent are called "Men of Kent," and those in West Kent, "Kentish Men"—because in East Kent the people are less intermixed with strangers than in West Kent, from its proximity to the metropolis—I was desirous of correcting what appeared to me to be a manifest error: but not finding any direct authority on the point, I consulted my friend Charles Sandys, Esq., of Canterbury, as a Kentish antiquary, on the subject. ”

“ He is in the power of the incubi, whom he has been so long warring against. Not a moment is to be lost, for already they are whispering together, and the scowls get fiercer and fiercer. What is to be done? ”

“ In the old Roman calendar I find it observed on this day (the 12th of March) , that a dole is made of soft beans. I can hardly entertain a doubt but that our custom is derived from hence. It was usual among the Romanists to give away beans in the doles at funerals; it was also a rite in the funeral ceremonies of heathen Rome. There is a great deal of learning in Erasmus's Adages concerning the religious use of beans, which were thought to belong to the dead. ”

“ As your valuable paper is in the hands of scholars of every description in every part of the world, the following communication may meet the eye, and be of no slight interest to some of your classical readers, and, at the same time, give a stimulus to hunters at bookstalls. Some time since, in one of my hunts, I stumbled upon a very fine copy of Pet. Victorine's (Vettori) edition of Æschylus, printed by H. Stephens, 1557. I was much gratified in finding it had belonged to the celebrated Thomas Morell, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., the lexicographer, and had his book-plate and autograph. ”

“ There can be no doubt, I think, that a burial ground, whether parish churchyard or cemetery, so long as it has been consecrated, or even licensed by the bishop, is only legally useable for interments performed according to "the ecclesiastical laws of this realm;" i.e. the burial service, as rubrically directed, must be read by a clergyman over the corpse. Whether the bishop would have proceeded by law against the clergyman in Carlile's case, supposing he had desisted from the service under the protests of the sons, may be questioned ”

“ Indagator says they have been supposed to be Hawksworth's and S. S. S. (Vol. ii., p. 30.) that they have been also attributed to Mason. I can state, from the best authority, that they are Lord Palmerston's. My authority needs no extrinsic confirmation, but I may as well observe that Indagator has himself sufficiently disposed of Hawksworth's claim, as his wife was still alive when the lines appeared; and the conjecture of S. S. S. is obviously a confusion of Lord Palmerston's lines with those of Mason's (whose wife died at Bristol) , beginning—
"Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear." ”

“ If the reading and interpretation of ORD be right, Vitalis was a Briton; and Arciacon may have been a deity acknowledged by the Ordovices, who occupied the northern parts of Wales."
In the name ARCIACON I fancy that I see in a Latinized form the British words ARCH IACHAWR, i.e. the Supreme Healer. Arch has the same meaning in Welsh as it has in the English and several other languages. In combination it is shortened to Ar, as in Yr Arglwdd Dduw, the Lord God. My conjecture is, that the Britons may have worshipped a God whose attributes resembled those of the Æsculapius of the Greeks. ”

“ No sneers, therefore, gentle readers, but listen to the simple strain of "Fairy Jip and Witch One-eye."
Once upon a time, just before the monkey tribe gave up the nauseous custom of chewing tobacco, there lived an old hag, who had conceived an inordinate desire to eat an elf: a circumstance, by the way, which indubitably establishes that elves were {602}of masticable solidity, and not, as some one has it, mere
"Shadowry dancers by the summer streams." ”

“ I am not aware that any professed treatise has been written or published upon our provincial distinction of 'Men of Kent' and 'Kentish Men.' That some such traditionary distinction, however, (whatever it may be) has existed from time immemorial in our county, cannot be disputed, and I think it has an undoubted and unquestionable historic origin, which I will endeavour briefly to illustrate. ”

“ Note by Warton on Aristotle's "Poetics."—Some of your correspondents having expressed a wish that the MS. remarks of eminent scholars, when met with by your readers, might be communicated to the world through your pages, I beg to send you the following observations, signed J. Warton, which I have found on the blank leaf of a copy of Aristotle's Poetics (edit. of Ruddimannos, Edinb. 1731) :—
"To attempt to understand poetry without having diligently digested this treatise, would be as absurd and impossible as to pretend to a skill in geometry without having studied Euclid. ”

“ The god Arciacon, whose name occurs in no other inscription, was probably one of those local deities to whom the Roman legions were so prone to pay religious reverence, especially if in the attributes ascribed to them they bore any resemblance to the gods of their own country. ”

“ The conversion of the Pagan inhabitants of Kent proceeded so rapidly that St. Augustine, with the assistance of King Ethelbert, soon founded another episcopal see at Rochester, and thus divided the Kentish kingdom into two dioceses: the eastern, or diocese of Canterbury; the western, or diocese of Rochester. ”

“ John Wordsworth, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, perhaps the profoundest Greek scholar next to Porson the University of Cambridge ever possessed, and who so ably reviewed Professor Scholefield's Æschylus in the Philological Museum. The classical world can never sufficiently regret that death prevented us from receiving at his hands a first-rate edition of this noble poet, as he had been at much pains in travelling all over the Continent, and examining all the MSS. extant ”

“ There is one tale in particular which comes within our designation of "popular stories," as is well known in almost all parts of England,—How a godly minister falls over the company of wicked scoffing elves, and how he gets out. ”

“ Seth's Pillars; May-butter; English Guzman.—In Walton's Complete Angler, in the beginning of the discourse between Piscator and Venator, the former, expatiating on the antiquity of the art of angling, gives as one of the traditions of its origin, that Seth, one of the sons of Adam,
"Left it engraven on those pillars which he erected, and trusted to preserve the knowledge of the mathematics, music, and the rest of that precious knowledge, and those useful arts which, by God's appointment or allowance, and his noble industry, were thereby preserved from perishing in Noah's flood." ”

“ MEN OF KENT AND KENTISH MEN. (Vol. v., p. 321.)
In your answers to Minor Queries (Vol. v., p. 321.) I find it stated, that the inhabitants of the part of Kent lying between Rochester and London being invicti, have ever since (the Norman Conquest) been designated as Men of Kent; while those to the eastward, through whose district the Conqueror marched unopposed, are only "Kentish Men." ”

“ Desirous that my successor in the O—— library should have the advantage of all the information I can collect, in regard to the bibliographical curiosities therein contained, I am induced to avail myself of the medium your pages afford to inquire whether any of your Suffolk antiquaries can give me, or point out where I can help myself to, any particulars touching my new friend with an old face. ”

“ RESTIVE. (Vol. v., p. 535.)
I am inclined to think that your correspondents, however deeply they may be versed in "Folk-Lore," are generally not much acquainted with "Horse-Lore." Such, at least, is the opinion that is warranted by the extraordinary nature of the questions (not many in number, it is true) which have been put in relation to that subject, and of the replies that have been given to them. In the case now before us, J. R. has only superficially considered the matter. He takes one out of many definitions "in our dictionaries," and on that takes his stand. He is manifestly in error. ”

“ At my father's school was a Yorkshire lad, who was to be educated classically, because he was intended for the medical profession. The cause assigned was, that "he was the seventh son of a seventh son;" and the seventh son of a seventh son "maks the bigg'st o' doctors."
C. C. C.
The Number Seven (Vol. v., p. 533.) .—Mr. Henry Edwards is quite right in his conjecture that the number seven, so often used in the Old and New Testament, is generally put to mean "several," "many," or an indefinite number. Hence the number seven was esteemed a sacred, symbolical, and mystical number. ”

“ The Blind Man of Bury by the Persuasions of his Printer, and some other supposed Friends, takes his Wife with him to London, with an Intention to settle there, where they met with so many Inconveniences, and so great Difficulties and Charges, as soon disgusted them with the Place. ”

“ Widows' and Family Mourning is always kept made up, and a note, descriptive of the Mourning required, will insure its being sent forthwith, either in Town or into the Country, and on the most Reasonable Terms. ”

“ Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft (Vol. v., p. 416.) .—Of this tract, inquired after by Mr. Clarke, and which is certainly one of the most extraordinary of all the treatises on Witchcraft, the only copy I ever saw is the one I possess, and which I have fully described in the notes to Pott's Discovery of Witches, printed for the Chetham Society, p. 4. The Rev. Author was no theorist, but a thoroughly practical man; having been an agent in finding and bringing to justice 200 witches in the eastern counties. ”

“ Meyrick's 'Practical Working of the Church of Spain.' This is the experience—and it is the experience of every Spanish traveller—of a thoughtful person, as to the lamentable results of unchecked Romanism. Here is the solid substantial fact. Spain is divided between ultra-infidelity and what is so closely akin to actual idolatry, that it can only be controversially, not practically, distinguished from it: and over all hangs a lurid cloud of systematic immorality, simply frightful to contemplate. We can offer a direct, and even personal, testimony to all that Mr. ”

“ A.D. 1009. "Then came the vast hostile army (Danes) to Sandwich, and they soon went their way to Canterbury; and all the people of 'East Kent' made peace with the army, and gave them 3000 pounds."
"Thus, I trust, I have satisfactorily shown from our ancient annals, that the distinction between 'Kentish Men' and 'Men of Kent,' existed at a period long anterior to the Norman Conquest, and is distinctly recognised in the foregoing historical passages. And its origin may, I think, be attributed to the ancient division of the Jutish kingdom of Kent into the two dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester. ”

“ What other nations besides the English have ever docked their horses' tails; and where is any account to be found of their reasons for so doing?
If any of your correspondents will answer these Queries, I shall feel obliged.
Tail.
St. Albans, William, Abbot of.—Archbishop Morton addressed a monition in 1490 to William, Abbot of St. Albans. It is to be found in Wilkin's Concilia, iii. 632., and is extracted from Archbishop Morton's Register, fol. 22. b. Now, in Tanner's Notitia, and in Dugdale's Monasticon, it is stated that William Wallingford, Abbot of St. Albans, died in 1484 ”