Various

“ Devices on Standards of the Anglo-Saxons.—Can any of your readers inform me what devices were borne on the standards of the several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the so-called Heptarchy? The white horse is by many supposed to have been the standard of Wessex, and to have been borne by Alfred; but was not this really the ensign of the Jutish kingdom of Kent, the county of Kent to this day displaying the white horse in its armorial bearings? The standard of Wessex is by others said to have been the white dragon ”

“ A query made by so experienced a writer as the noble historian of Audley End, cannot admit of an easy solution; and instead of professing to answer the two-fold query on pokership, it might more become me to style this note an attempt to answer it. ”

“ To say that a man's merits and frailties repose in trembling hope before God, is surely not irreverent; and this is, I think, all that Gray intended to convey in the words to which your correspondent objects.
W.L.M.
[The latter emendation "would he rove," which is neither in the Aldine edition of the Rev. J. Mitford, nor in Mr. Van Voorst's beautifully illustrated Polyglot edition, should clearly be introduced, in future, as harmonising more perfectly with the "would he stretch" of the preceding stanza.] ”

“ Now, the topographical description of the county of Armarh is that it is hilly, and the hills (not very high) are of granite rock. The town of Armagh again is described as situated on an eminence. I suggest, therefore, the high field or ground, or the field of the Hill, or the dwelling or town of the Hill, as very natural derivations.
If your correspondent prefers it, Ar bears also the signification of rock, and M. Bullet says:—
"Ce terme nous a été conservé dans la Vie de Saint Colomb." ”

“ Gray's Elegy.—Your correspondent, "A. GRAYAN" (No. 10., p. 150.) , in writing on the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, suggests the existence of error or obscurity in the last stanza of the epitaph; and that, if the reading, as it now stand, be faulty, "some amendment" should be suggested.
At the sale of Mason's collection of Gray's books and MSS., in December, 1845, I purchased Gray's copy of Dodsley's collection (2nd edition, 1758) , with corrections, names of authors, &c., in his own hand. The Elegy is the first poem in vol. iv. ”

“ Burning the Dead.—Can any of your readers, who may have attended particularly to the funeral customs of different peoples, inform me whether the practice of burning the dead has ever been in vogue amongst any people excepting inhabitants of Europe and Asia? ”

“ The word "Peruse."—I find the word Peruse employed as a substantive, and apparently as equivalent to Examination, in the following part of a sentence in the martyr Fryth's works, Russell's ed., p. 407.:—"He would have been full sore ashamed so to have overseen himself at Oxford, at a peruse."
Can any of your correspondents cite a corresponding instance of its use, or say whether it is still retained at Oxford as the name of any academic exercise?
H.W.
French Maxim.—Who is the author of the following French saying?—
"L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu." ”

“ The aim of this selection is to furnish a set of Services that will take in all the great subjects of Family Prayer, and so short that the busiest household may have time for its devout utterance. It will be found suitable for those who have hitherto neglected the duty of Family Prayer. ”

“ Tradition had given to the superstitious at that period a legendary story of the period of the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion, of two brothers who fought in this field so ferociously as to destroy each other; since which, their footsteps, formed from the vengeful struggle, were said to remain, with the indentations produced by their advancing and receding; nor could any grass or vegetable ever be produced where these forty footsteps were thus displayed. ”

“ In a side chapel of the chancel of the church at Alost, midway between Brussels and Ghent, is the printer's tomb, and a double inscription, in Latin and in Flemish, commemorates his celebrity and the dates of his birth and death; in the Latin inscription the name is Theodoricus Martinus; in the Flemish, which is very old and nearly effaced, it is Diedrych Meertens. ”

“ I will not pretend to reply to the concluding queries of your correspondent, but I would just remark that, from what we know of the feeling of our ancestors respecting the remains of the dead, it appears probably that if from any cause a large quantity of human bones were found, or were from any cause obliged to be disturbed, some ecclesiastic or pious layman would take measures to have them removed to some consecrated spot where they might be safe from further molestation. ”

“ Sir Stephen Fox.—Will any of your intelligent correspondents inform me whether Sir Stephen Fox, the ancestor of the present Lord Holland and the Earl of Ilchester, had any brothers or sisters, and if so, whether they had any children, and who are the legal representatives of those collateral branches, if any? ”

“ Antony Alsop.—Will any of your correspondents kindly tell me who Antony Alsop was? A thin Quarto volume of Latin Odes was published in 1753, with the following title: "Antonii Alsopi Ædis Christi olim Alumni Ordarum Libri Duo," Londoni, 1753. They are extremely elegant, and deserving the attention of all lovers of Latin poetry. I have also another volume, "Latin and English Poems, by a Gentleman of Trinity College, Oxford," Quarto London, 1738. ”

“ Dodsley was referred to as the arbitrator, when he ridiculed the idea of consulting him on the subject, saying, 'Every fool knows they are in Hudibras.' George Selwyn, who was present, said to Dodsley, 'Pray, sir, will you be good enough, then, to inform an old fool, who is at the same time your wise worship's very humble servant, in what canto they are to be found?' Dodsley took down the volume, but he could not find the passage ”

“ The Celtic language affords many other possibilities, but an accurate knowledge of the locality is requisite in judging of their probablility.
HERMES.
The etymology of Armagh, in Ireland, is very simple. Ard, high, great, noble, a purely Celtic root, found in many languages. Latin, Arduus, high, &c. Welsh, hardh, fair, handsome, &c. Magh, a plain, a level tract of land, a field. ”

“ It is moreover, both in Warton's edition and in the Aldine Poets, edited by the Rev. A. Dyce, marked as a quotation, as will be seen in the following extract; so that Pope, it appears, is not the author of it. Perhaps some of our correspondents can trace the source from which he derived it:—
"Besides, a fate attends on all I write,
That when i aim at praise they say I bite.
A vile encomium doubly ridicules;
There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools. ”

“ While on the subject of quotations, let me ask whether any of your correspondents can tell me where the passage, "Providence tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," is to be found?
Among a few of the many floating quotable passages universally known, without any trace of the authors, among general readers and writers, are the following:—
"When wild in woods the noble savage ran." ”

“ The authority, not acknowledged by his lordship, was, no doubt, the Parliamentary History of 1766 (vol. xvi. p. 96.) , where your correspondent will find the statement, which of course, the date being correctly given, contains nothing that is not consistent with known facts.
C.
Bone-houses.—The number of skulls at Rothewell (No. 11., p. 171.) is greatly exaggerated, nor is the tradition of their being gathered from Naseby battle-field more than a modern invention, the discovery of the bones being within the memory of living persons. Their existence there is most puzzling. ”

“ We are daily familiarised to worse corruptions. Docks are excavations, large or small, formed by the operation of digging, in Dutch called Dóken.
J.I.
[DICK'S SHORE, Fore Street, Limehouse, and DICK'S SHORE ALLEY, by Dick's Shore, are both mentioned in London and its Environs, vol. ii. p. 233.]
Travelling in England.—Mr. Steven's quotation (No. 11., p. 167.) of Bernard Calvert's rapid journey, as from an anonymous History of England written in the early part of the reign of George I., is to be found in more detail in Stow (1032.) ”

“ Alexander Dyce has at length completed, in three volumes, his long-looked-for edition of The Dramatic Works of Kit Marlowe.
Such of our clerical friends as have in their churches a peal of bells which, at the will of the ringers,
"Speak the loud language of a mighty knell,"
and who must, therefore, sometimes be painfully convinced of the ill practices which occasionally grow up in the belfry, will thank us for calling their attention to the Practical Remarks on Belfries and Ringers, lately published, by the Rev. ”

“ Thomas Killegrew died in 1683, and was succeeded by Charles Killegrew; the degree of the relationship between the two Killegrews I do not know; and in the London Gazette, Dec. 7. 1685, there is a notice commanding all "rope-dancers, prize-players, strollers and other persons showing motions and other sights, to have licenses from Charles Killegrew, Esq., Master of the Revells." ”

“ It may be as well to add, that the references to vols. xxx. and xxxvi. of MS. are to two different copies of the will in two volumes of Baker's MSS., in the University library. The word "dissipanding," in the last quotation, doubtless is an allusion {212} to "dissipanda" in the will itself. I once had occasion to take a copy of this will, and found the variations between the two copies trifling. ”

“ Where American purchasers could not obtain original editions they have, in all possible cases, secured reprints, and they have made some themselves.
Not very long since a present of a most creditable and well-edited republication of "Four Old Plays" was sent to me from Cambridge, U.S., consisting of "Three Interludes: Thersytes, Jack Jugler, and Heywood's Pardoner and Frere; and Jocasta, a tragedy by Gascoigne and Kinwelmarsh." They are preceded by a very well written and intelligent, and at the same time modest, Introduction, signed F.J.C., the initials of Mr. Francis James Child ”

“ LINES ATTRIBUTED TO HUDIBRAS.
Perhaps the following extract from a volume entitled The Relics of Literature, published by Boys and Co., Ludgate Hill, 1820, may prove interesting, as further illustrating the so frequently disputed passage which forms the subject matter of your first article in No. 12.:—
"Few popular quotations have more engaged the pens of critics than the following:—
'For he that fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day.'
"These lines are almost universally supposed to form a part of Hudibras ”

“ Derivations of "Calamity," and "Zero;" and meaning of "Prutenicæ".—Will some of your correspondents give the derivations of Calamity and Zero; also the meaning of the word Prutenicæ, used by Erasmus Rheinholt, in his astronomical work on the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies? ”

“ Douce had one, which was in Mr. Rodd's catalogue, but now sold; and Hone also possessed one. These two, and another in the hands of a friend of mine, are the only specimens I have heard of; but they are not quite as old or as genuine as one could wish.
J.O. HALLIWELL.
Origin of the name "Polly."—Will you allow me to ask how persons of my name came to be called Polly?
MARY.
Tomlinson, of Southwingfield, Derbyshire.—The parochial register of the parish of Southwingfield, in the county of Derby, contains, among its earliest entries (A.D. 1586) , the name Tomlinson, as then resident therein. ”

“ The couplet, thus erroneously ascribed to the author of Hudibras, occurs in a small volume of Miscellaneous Poems, by Sir John Mennis, written in the reign of Charles the Second, which has now become extremely scarce. The original of the couplet may, however, be traced to much higher authority, even to Demosthenes, who has the following expression:—
{211}
' [Greek: Anaer ho pheugon kai palin machaesetai] ',
of which the lines are almost a literal translation. ”

“ Perhaps some of your correspondents would answer both these queries. I happen to have a few, some of which were used in compiling his Dictionary, and are full of his marks, with references to the quotations, most of which are to be found in the Dictionary. I have also his own Prayer-Book.
T.G. LOMAX.
Lichfield, Jan. 11. 1850.
Golden Frog.—In the church of Boxstead, in the county of Suffolk, there is a large and very handsome monument of marble, in a niche of which stands, in full proportion, a man in armour, his head bare, with moustaches and a tuft on his chin ”

“ Hereford, with the office of pokership, and custody of the forest or chace of Prestwood, for life."
Are we to read parkership or pokership? If pokership, what is its meaning?
Skelton, the rhymer, has parker for park-keeper, so that parkership is an admissable word; but I reject it on this occasion, as inapplicable to a forest or chace. I incline to believe that pokership is the true lection. Poke denoted a purse; witness Chaucer:—
"Gerveis answered ”

“ I cannot find any allusion to the work in the Censura Literuria, (2nd ed. 1815) , another instance of the absolute necessity for exact references, the want of which you would do well in making a ground of exclusion from your columns. However, on the chance of being useful I send you an exact copy of the rubricated title-page of the reprint, which is as follows:
"The Fraternitye of Vacabondes ”

“ I. Mundus et Elementa. II. Dii Gentium. III. Hominis Bona. IV. Hominis Mala. V. Ritus Gentium. VI. Aves. VII. Quadrupedes. VIII. Pisces. IX. Serpentes et Insecta. X. Plantæ. XI. Lapilli. XII. Manufacta.
M.
Oxford.
Fraternitye of Vagabondes.—It does not appear very clearly from the wording of the query at p. 184. of your 12th number, whether the object of your correspondent, "A. GRIFFINHOOF, JUN.," be to ascertain the fact of the reprint in question having been published by Stace, or (having ascertained that fact) to procure further information as to the publisher. ”