Various

“ Does a priest's surplice differ from that worn by a lay vicar, or vicar choral? I have been an old choir-boy; and some few years since, as a boy, used to remark that the priests' surplices worn at St. Paul's, the Chapel Royal, and Westminster Abbey, were, as a sempstress would term it, gaged, or stitched down in rows over the shoulders some seven or eight times at the distance of about half an inch from each other. In the cathedral churches of Durham, York, Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester, and Oxford, I have remarked their almost universal adoption ”

“ Jack priests held rule over them; and gentle exercise at the jack, at bowls, helped them to digest their dinners. We ride upon jack-asses; jacks flourish in our fish-ponds; jack-a-lanterns and jack-snipes flit over our bogs, the one scarcely less difficult to capture than the other; jack-daws multiply in our steeples, and jack-herons still linger about our baronial halls. ”

“ Our childhood past, Jack still haunts us at every turn and phase of our existence. The smoke-jack and bottle-jack, those revolutionary instruments that threw the turnspit out of employment (and have well-nigh banished him from the face of the earth) , cook the Jack hare, which we bring in in the pocket of our shooting-jacket. We wear jack-boots, and draw them off with boot-jacks; prop up our houses with jack-screws; wipe our hands on jack-towels; drink out of black-jacks, and wear them on our backs too, at least our ancestors did ”

“ A player upon words might answer him, "Any Patinis rather than your Piety in Pattens." I wonder the wags have not been quoting upon you, "Whose erudition is a Christmas tale." But Mr. Johnson is ready to bruise any one who calls in question your classical knowledge and your happy application of it. I hope Mr. Johnson has given you an entertaining account of his Northern Tour. He is certainly to favour the world with some of his remarks. Pray do not fail to quicken him by word as I do by letter. Posterity will be the more obliged to his friends the more that they can prevail with him to write. ”

“ The common idea, legend, or tradition, that prevailed formerly was, that the upright beam of the cross was made of cedar, the cross-beam of cypress, the piece on which the inscription was written of olive, and the piece for the feet of palm.
The legend concerning the wood of the cross is very curious, and may be analysed as follows:—When Adam fell sick, he sent his son Seth to the gate of the garden of Eden to beg of the angel some drops of the oil of mercy that distilled from the tree of life. The angel replied that none could receive this favour till five thousand years had passed away. ”

“ About half the height of the ring is a steel clip at each side, like those on spectacles, but much stronger, about half an inch broad, which moving on a screw or rivet, after the sitter's head is placed in the ring, are drawn down, so as to clip the head just above the ears. A diagram would explain the whole, which has, at any rate, simplicity in its favour. I find it admirable. Ladies' hair passing through the ring does not prevent steadiness, and with children the steel clips are perfect. I shall be happy to send a rough diagram to any one, manufacturers or amateurs. ”

“ The work, which supplies a deficiency which the architectural student has{346} long felt, is produced in the same handsome style, and with the same profuseness of illustration, as its predecessor, and will be found valuable not only to archæologists who study history in brick and stone, but also to those who search in the memorials of bygone ages for illustrations of manners and customs, and of that greater subject than all, the history of our social progress. ”

“ When I first began to write on Mythology, I followed the Germans in using mythus for the Greek μῦθος. I afterwards thought it would be better to Anglicise it, and, strange to say, I actually found that there was a rule in the English language without an exception. It was this: Words formed from Greek disyllables in ος, whether the penultimate vowel be long or short, are monosyllables made long by e final. ”

“ What is the origin of Plough Monday? May there not be some connexion with the Town Plough? and that the custom, which was common when I was a boy, of going round for contributions on that day, may not have originated in collecting funds for the keeping in order, and purchasing, if necessary, the Town Plough?
Brick.
Shoreditch Cross and the painted Window in Shoreditch Church (Vol. vii., p. 38.) .—I beg to acquaint your correspondent J. W. B. that although I had long searched for an engraving of Shoreditch Cross, my labour was lost. ”

“ To trace the origin of the term Lavant, we must, I conceive, go back to a period more remote than the Roman occupation; for that remarkable people, who conquered the inhabitants of Britain, and partially succeeded in imposing Roman appellations upon the greater towns and cities, never could change the aboriginal names of the rivers and mountains of the country. "Our hills, forests, and rivers," says Bishop Percy, "have generally retained their old Celtic names." ”

“ James's.
Burial of an unclaimed Corpse (Vol. vii., p. 262.) .—E. G. R.'s question is easily answered. The parish of Keswick proved that some years before they had buried a body found on a piece of land. This was evidence of reputation that at the time of the burial the land was in Keswick, otherwise the parishioners would not have taken on themselves this work of uncalled-for benevolence. The fact of their having incurred an expense, which, unless the land was in their parish, would have been the burden of Markshall, satisfied the commissioner that the land must have belonged to Keswick. ”

“ And the literal meaning, will be: "What was existence, is that which lies here; that which was not existence, is that which is existence; to be what is now, is not to be; that which is now, is not existence, but will be hereafter."
This, perhaps, is as enigmatical as the original: but the following lines will render the meaning plainer, though it is difficult to preserve the brevity of the Latin in an English version ”

“ There are several examples of detached bell-towers still remaining, as at Evesham, Worcestershire; Berkeley, Gloucestershire; Walton, Norfolk; Ledbury, Herefordshire; and a very curious one entirely of timber, with the frame for the bells springing from the ground, at Pembridge, Herefordshire. At Salisbury a fine early English detached campanile, 200 feet in height, surmounted by a timber turret and spire, stood near the north-west corner of the cathedral, but was destroyed by Wyatt. ”

“ But it is hardly credible that a man should have the warmest regard for his friend, a constant desire to show it, and a keen ambition for a frequent epistolary intercourse with him, and yet should let months roll on without having resolution, or activity, or power, or whatever it be, to write a few lines. ”

“ The incident, however, is one too familiar in schoolboy life to make the repetition of the story a matter of surprise. The property in an apple growing within the reach of a boy's hand has from time immemorial been in peril, and the law itself has not always regarded it as an object of scrupulous protection. ”

“ However trifling the matter may be in itself, it is no trifling matter to involve a considerable portion of the clergy, and among them many who are most desirous to uphold both the letter and the spirit of the Church of England, and to resist all real innovation, in a charge of lawlessness. ”

“ To serve little children, the robin dares approach the Infernal Pit. No good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. ”

“ Young has a fine thought to this purpose, that every friend who goes before us to the other side of the river of death, makes the passage to us the easier. Were our club all removed to a future world but one or two, they, one should think, would incline to follow. ”

“ It is because there is the earth that nourished the root, that bore the tree, that yielded the timber, that made the cross. Under the high altar you are shown a hole in the ground where the stump of the tree stood."—P. 462. ”

“ Hear him in his own words:
"Our succeeding (Cheshire) collectors form a family harmonic trio, a father, son, and grandson, of the surname of Chaloner, and of the several Christian names, Thomas, Jacob, and James. Thomas was an arms-painter in Chester about 1594; he knew the value of learning sufficiently to give his son a better education than he received himself. And this son followed the same occupation in Chester, and made collections, about the year 1620. ”

“ Gerard de Camville, his old and faithful adherent, was restored by John to the possession of the honours of which he had been deprived by King Richard; and it is a remarkable circumstance that, on the death of the said Gerard, in the eighteenth year of the king's reign, his widow, Nichola Camville (who is described by an ancient historian as being 'a martial woman of great courage and address') had the sheriffalty of the county of Lincoln committed to her ”

“ This notion is confirmed by the fact, that the scarf was frequently called a tippet in Ireland within memory. And in a letter, discussing this very subject, in the Gentleman's Mag. (for 1818, part ii. p. 218. [7] ) , the testimony of one is given who had for upwards of fifty years considered the two words as identical, and had heard them in his youth used indiscriminately by aged clergymen. It is notorious that in Ireland, time out of mind, tippets have been more generally worn than hoods in parish churches there. ”

“ To be what 'tis is not to be, you see;
That which now is not shall a Being be."
Q. S.
Straw Bail (Vol. vii., p. 85.) .—In connexion with, though not as a reply to, Mr. Curtis's Query touching the origin of the expression "A man of straw," I beg to bring under notice a phrase I heard for the first time a few days ago, but which may nevertheless be well known to others. A seaman, talking to me of a strike for wages among the crew of a ship, said that the captain, as the rate of wages had not been raised, had manned his ship with a "lot of straw-yarders." ”

“ Margaret, Countess of Richmond, was a justice of peace. Sir W. Dugdale tells us that Ela, widow of William, Earl of Salisbury, executed the sheriff's office for the county of Wilts, in different parts of the reign of Henry III. (See Baronage, vol. i. p. 177.) From Fuller's Worthies we find that Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Lord Clifford, was sheriffess of Westmoreland for many years; and from Pennant's Scottish Tour we learn that for the same county Anne, the celebrated Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, often sat in person as sheriffess. ”

“ An Easter-day Sun.—In that verse of Sir John Suckling's famous Ballad upon a Wedding, wherein occurs the simile of the "little mice," what is the meaning of the allusion to the Easter-day sun?—
"But oh! she dances such a way,
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight!"
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
[It was formerly a common belief that the sun danced on Easter-day: see Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. p. 161. et seq. So general was it, that Sir Thomas Browne treats on it in his Vulgar Errors, vol. ii. p. 87. ed. Bohn.]
Replies. HAMILTON QUERIES.
(Vol. vii., p. 285.) ”

“ UNOBSERVED INSTANCES OF SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF THE LATTER. (Vol. vii., p. 38.)
Mr. Fraser's remark about the word anywhen has brought to my mind two passages in Shakspeare which have been always hitherto rendered obscure by wrong printing and wrong pointing. The first occurs in Measure for Measure, Act IV. Sc. 2., where the Duke says:
"This is a gentle provost: seldom-when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men."
Here the compound word, signifying rarely, not often, has been always printed as two words; and Mr. Collier, following others, has even placed a comma between seldom and when. ”

“ Men's cruel rage, I do assuage.'"
"It has anciently been reported," observes Lord Bacon, "and is still received, that extreme applauses and shouting of people assembled in multitudes, have so rarefied and broken the air, that birds flying over have fallen down, the air not being able to support them; and it is believed by some that great ringing of bells in populous cities hath chased away thunder, and also dissipated pestilent air. ”

“ The Iron Mask (Vol. v., p. 474.; Vol. vii., p. 234.) .—Your correspondent A. S. A. asks with much complacency, "What authority Mr. James Cornish has for asserting (Vol. v., p. 474.) that the mysterious secret of the Masque de fer has ever been satisfactorily explained?" Mr. James Cornish does not make statements of historical facts without authority: he therefore begs to refer A. S. A. to Delort, Histoire de l'Homme au Masque de fer, Paris, 1825 ”

“ Parker, who, though he modestly confesses that if he had not known that he could safely calculate upon much valuable assistance from others more competent than himself, he would never have ventured to undertake it at all, had already given proof of his fitness for the task by the Glossary of Architecture with which his name has been so long and so honourably connected. ”

“ The injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, in 1564, seem to mark the tippet as a distinction between clergymen and laymen, who otherwise, in colleges and choirs at least, would have none. I also am strongly of opinion that the tippets mentioned in the 58th and 74th English canons are the two scarfs referred to: the silken tippet (or broad scarf) being for such priests or deacons as hold certain offices, or are M.A., LL.B., or of superior degree ”