Various

“ That the Orkney and Zetland Islands were transferred by Denmark to Scotland in 1468, in pledge for payment of part of the dower of the Princess of Denmark, who was married to James III., King of Scotland, under right of redemption by Denmark, is an admitted historic fact; but it is asserted by the Scottish, and denied by the Danish historians, that Denmark renounced her right of redemption of these Islands. ”

“ Some have caught glimpses of these isles, and some more favoured mortals have even landed, and returned again with senses dazzled at the ravishing sights they have seen. But in every case after these rare favours, these mystic lands have remained invisible as before, and the way to them has been sought for in vain. ”

“ For some four hundred years an intercourse was maintained between this colony and Norway and Denmark. In the year 1406 the last bishop was sent over to Greenland. Since then the colony has not been heard of. Many have been the attempts to recover this lost church of East Greenland, but hitherto in vain.
I could send you a Note on a cognate subject, but I fear it would occupy too much of your space,—that of Happy Isles, or Islands of the Blessed. The tradition respecting these happy isles is very wide-spread, and obtains amongst nearly every nation of the globe ”

“ Your correspondents assume that the old shoe was thrown after the bride for luck, and for luck only. I doubt whether it was so in its origin.
Among barbarous nations, all transfers of property, all assertions and relinquishments of rights of dominion, were marked by some external ceremony or rite; by which, in the absence of written documents, the memory of the vulgar might be impressed. When, among Scandinavian nations, land was bought or sold, a turf was delivered by the trader to the purchaser: and among the Jews, and probably among other oriental nations, a shoe answered the same purpose. ”

“ The Book of Common Prayer according to the use of the Church of Ireland, we believe, may frequently be met with. An edition in folio, 1740, is in the British Museum, containing "The Form of Prayer for the Visitation of Prisoners, treated upon by the Archbishops and Bishops, and the rest of the Clergy of Ireland, and agreed upon by Her Majesty's License in their Synod, holden at Dublin in the Year 1711." We are inclined to think that Mrs. Berkeley must have intended its beautiful exhortation—not the prayer—for the use of the poor. ”

“ The twentieth legion, it is well known, was one of the four which came into Britain in the reign of Claudius, and contributed to its subjugation: the vexillation of this legion was in the army of Suetonius Paulinus when he made that victorious stand in a fortified pass, with a forest in his rear, against the insurgent Britons. The position is sketched by Tacitus, and antiquaries well know that on the high ground above Battle Bridge there are vestiges of Roman works, and that the tract of land to the north was formerly a forest. ”

“ And, in making this the subject of a Note, I am only opening up an old Query; for the character of the nightingale's song has often been a matter for discussion, not only for poets and scribblers, but even for great statesmen like Fox, who, amid all the anxieties of a political life, could yet find time to defend the nightingale from being a "most musical, most melancholy" bird.
Coleridge's onslaught upon this line, in his poem of "The Nightingale," must be well known to all lovers of poetry ”

“ Now, that was rendered sensitive in a gutta percha bath, which I have had in use for months; and I think I may appeal to the Editor as to the absence of all unpleasant markings in it. Probably it may be a good plan for those who make the baths for themselves to adopt the following simple method of cleaning them at first. Fill the bath with water, changing it every day for a week or so. Then wash it with strong nitric acid, and wash once or twice afterwards. Always keep the nitrate of silver solution in the bath, with a cover over it. ”

“ Christian Names.—Can any of your correspondents inform me when it became a common practice to have more than one Christian name? Lord Coke says (Co. Litt. 3 a) :
"And regularly it is requisite that the purchaser be named by the name of baptism and his surname, and that special heed be taken to the name of baptism; for that a man cannot have two names of baptism as he may have divers surnames."
And further on he says:
"If a man be baptized by the name of Thomas, and after, at his confirmation by the bishop, he is named John, he may purchase by the name of his confirmation.... ”

“ H. F. Talbot, which enables him to take Portraits by the newly-discovered Collodion Process. The advantages which this process offers are,—Excellence of Likeness, great Convenience, and the opportunity of Multiplying copies of the same Portrait to any extent. These Portraits have the appearance of beautiful mezzotint engravings, with the superior accuracy which Sun-painting must insure. One moment suffices to obtain the likeness, and no constrained position is required. Hence a happy expression of face is instantly caught, and young children may be taken without difficulty. ”

“ I would suggest for the consideration of your correspondents that the throwing a shoe after a bride was a symbol of renunciation of dominion and authority over her by her father or guardian; and the receipt of the shoe by the bridegroom, even if accidental, was an omen that that authority was transferred to him. ”

“ Collier's folio be a real or a pseudo-antique, it is impossible to deny that its executor must have been a clever, as he was certainly a slashing hitter. It cannot, therefore, be wondered that he should sometimes reach the mark: but that these corrections should be received with that blind and superstitious faith, so strangely exacted for them, can scarcely be expected. ”

“ I have lately been much interested in a pack of cards, complete (fifty-two) in their number and suits, engraved in the time of the Commonwealth at the Hague, and representing the chief personages and the principal events of that period. I have been able, by reference to historical authorities, and, in particular, to the Ballads and Broadsides in the British Museum, forming the collection presented to the nation by George III., to explain the whole pack, with the exception of two. ”

“ DR. SOUTH'S LATIN TRACT AGAINST SHERLOCK.
None of South's compositions are more striking or characteristic than his two English tracts against Sherlock, his Animadversions on Sherlock's [Pg 403] Vindication of the Trinity, 1693-94, 4to., and his Tritheism charged on Sherlock's new Notion of the Trinity, 1694, 4to. For caustic wit and tremendous power of vituperation, I scarcely know any controversial works which surpass, or even equal them. South looked upon Sherlock with profound scorn as a Sciolist, and hated him most cordially as a heretic and a political renegade. ”

“ The Norwegians at that time destroyed or expelled the race then inhabiting these islands. They are supposed to have been Picts, and to have received Christianity at an earlier date, but it is doubtful if there were Christians in Orkney at that period: however, Depping says expressly, that Earl Segurd, the second Norwegian earl, expelled the Christians from these isles. I may remark, that the names of places in Orkney and Zetland are Norse, and bear descriptive and applicable meanings in that tongue ”

“ They were purchased at the Hague, more than thirty years since, for thirty-three guineas, and are exceedingly curious: indeed they form a bundle of Commonwealth tracts. All the principal persons of the time figure in some characteristic representation, and the private scandal is also recognised in them. Thus, Oliver is to be found under a strong conflict with Lady Lambert; Sir Harry Mildmay solicits a citizen's wife, for which his own corrects him; and he is also being beaten by a footboy,—which event is alluded to in Butler's Posthumous Works. ”

“ The receiving of a shoe was an evidence and symbol of asserting or accepting dominion or ownership; the giving back a shoe, the symbol of rejecting or resigning it.
Among the Jews, the brother of a childless man was bound to marry his widow: or, at least, he "had the refusal of her," and the lady could not marry again till her husband's brother had formally rejected her. The ceremony by which this rejection was performed took place in open court, and is mentioned in Deut. xxv. If the brother publicly refused her, "she loosed his shoe from off his foot, and spat in his face;" ”

“ THE NATIONAL MISCELLANY is an attempt to supply high-principled and high-toned Literature of a secular kind, which may be safely taken up by thoughtful persons when their more serious reading is over, and which may also indirectly act for good on those who thrust all religious works aside. ”

“ Charlotte Smith) , "Dryad of the trees" (Keats) , "Sappho of the dell" (Hood) ; but the foregoing list of simple adjectives (which doubtless could be greatly increased by a more extended poetical reading) sufficiently demonstrates the popularity of the nightingale as a poetical embellishment, and would, perhaps, tend to prove that a greater diversity of epithets have been bestowed upon the nightingale than have been given to any other song-bird. ”

“ I. The former estate of the Spencers in Hurstwood is a tenement which was purchased by the late Rev. John Hargreaves from the representatives of William Ormerod, of Foxstones, in Cliviger, in 1803, and which had been conveyed in 1690, by John Spencer, then of Marsden, to Oliver Ormerod of Hurstwood, and his son Laurence; the former of these being youngest son, by a second marriage, of Peter Ormerod of Ormerod, and co-executor of his will in 1650. ”

“ I will hate the people, and to my power persecute them. Which is the croppe and more of al sedition. Yet too much practised in oure liues. But what cause is there why a noble man should eyther despise the people? ”

“ Never filter, unless there is a great deal of extraneous matter at the bottom. If glass baths are used, cemented together with sealing-wax, &c., I imagine they might be as objectionable as gutta percha. The number of inquiries for a diagram of my head-rest, &c., from all parts of the kingdom—Glasgow, Paisley, Manchester, Leicester, Leeds, Newcastle, Durham, &c. &c.—proves the very large number of photographic subscribers "N. & Q." possesses. I think, therefore, it cannot but prove useful to discuss in its pages the question of the advantage or disadvantage of gutta percha. ”

“ It may appear somewhat droll for any one to answer a question on which he has not had experience; but I beg to offer as a suggestion to Photo, that if he wishes to use collodion pictures for the purpose of dissolving views, he should first copy them in the camera as transparent objects so as to reverse the light and shade, then varnish them with Dr. Diamond's solution of amber in chloroform, when they will bear the application of transparent colours ground in varnish, such as are used for painting magic-lantern slides.
Geo. Shadbolt.
Gutta Percha Baths (Vol. vii., p. 314.) ”

“ I also drain off all I can of the nitrate of silver solution before placing the glass in the camera, and for three reasons:—1. Because it saves material; 2. Because the lower part of dark frame is kept free from liquid; 3. Because a "flowing sheet" of liquid must interfere somewhat with the passage of light to the film, and consequently with the sharpness of the picture. I think it is clear, from Mr. Shadbolt's directions to Mr. Meritt, that it is no very easy thing to cement a glass bath with marine glue.
J. L. Sisson.
Colouring Collodion Pictures (Vol. vii., p. 388.) ”

“ And the Bible adds, "as it was the custom in Israel concerning changing, that a man plucked off his shoe and delivered it to his neighbour," the kinsman plucked off his shoe and delivered it to Boaz as a public renunciation of Ruth, of all dominion over her, and of his right of pre-marriage. ”

“ He accordingly gives him no quarter, and seems determined to draw blood at every stroke. Mrs. Sherlock is of course not forgotten, and one of the happiest passages in the Tritheism charged is the well-known humorous illustration of Socrates and Xantippe, p. 129. It is somewhat curious that, notwithstanding these two works of South have attracted so much notice, it seems to be quite unknown that he also published a Latin tract against Sherlock, in further continuation of the controversy, in which the attack is carried on with equal severity. ”

“ What cannot easily be accounted for, is the discovery of two Orkney and Zetland deeds of the beginning of the fifteenth century prior to the transfer, written not in Norse, but in the Scottish language. ”

“ Further, no more may nobilitie misse the people, then in man's body, the heade, the hande. For of trueth, the common people are the handes of the nobles, sith them selues bee handlesse. They labour and sweate for them, with tillinge, saylinge, running, toylinge: by sea, by lad, with hads, wt feete, serue them. ”

“ I look, however, with confidence to the wide range of your correspondents, and hope to receive some clue which may guide me to the wished-for discovery.
The portrait is an oil painting, a fine full florid face, with a long wig of black curly hair resting on the shoulders, gown and band, date probably from Queen Anne to George II.
J. T. A.
Arms: Battle-axe.—With some quarterings of Welsh arms in Bisham (Marlow) of Hobey, is one of three battle-axes. The same appear near Denbigh, supposed taken in with a L. R. from Vaughan. Query, What family or families bore three battle-axes? ”