Various

“ It is very dangerous to dogmatise on the English language. We really have no authority to which we can confidently appeal, except the usage of good society: "Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi." Unfortunately, however, every man is convinced, that in his own society that usage is to be found; and your correspondents, who have agreed in approving the Heapian pronunciation, will probably, on that ground, still retain the same opinion.
The only words in the English language, in which h is written, but not pronounced, are words derived from Latin through the French ”

“ If the dictionaries are framed on the principle of displaying only the classical language of England, it is ten to one they will not supply the desired information. Let there be, besides classical dictionaries, glossaries which will exclude no word whatever on account of rarity, vulgarity, or technicality, but which may very well exclude those which are most familiar. As to encyclopædias, their value is chiefly as supplements to the library ”

“ There is a perpetual change of about a third of the members every year, few remaining above three years. Now can any one, who candidly considers these facts, doubt that a usage in pronouncing a particular word at either University if generally prevalent, is very strong evidence that the same usage is generally prevalent throughout England; but if any one does entertain such a doubt, surely it must be done away, when he finds that the same usage prevails at both Universities ”

“ But let us consider whether the usage of the Universities is not very cogent evidence that the h is generally sounded throughout England, 1. Each University contains a large number of the higher and better educated classes. 2. The members come from all parts of England indiscriminately. 3. Infinitely the majority come from schools; and some of the large schools have generally many members at each University. By such persons the pronunciation of the schools cannot fail to be represented. 4. Every one on entering the University is expected at least to know his own language. ”

“ Dawson is right in supposing that that usage is general both at Oxford and Cambridge, and I rather think that not only an explanation of the fact may be given, but that the fact itself, that in both the Universities the h is sounded, is extremely cogent evidence that it is correct. It cannot be doubted that the fact that a word is spelled with certain letters is clear proof that, at the time when that spelling was adopted, the word was so sounded as to give a distinct sound to each of the letters used, and that clearly must have been the case with words beginning with h especially. ”

“ Pope possesses the gentle and amiable graces of a Guido: Cowper is endowed with the bold sublime genius of a Raphael. After having said so much upon their comparative merits, enough, I hope, to refute your second assertion which was, that women, in the opinion of men, have little to do with literature. I may inform you, that the Iliad is to be dedicated to Earl Cowper, and the Odyssey to the Dowager Lady Spencer but this information need not be extensively circulated. ”

“ Beyond the west wall of the mill which adjoins the stream, there is a continuation of the trench through the rock down to the water, which serves to take away that which passes over the millwheel at right angles to where the rock has been cut away to make room for the millwheel itself. That which has been cut away in making the trench, is a seam of clay slate about three feet six inches in breadth, between two solid whinstone rocks. The length of the passage, from the east end, which terminated in rock, to the mill, is sixty-three feet. ”

“ They indeed carry the non-aspiration farther than to words of Latin derivation. They omit the aspirate to nearly all words derived from Greek. This we never do. I think that E. H.'s rule, of always aspirating h before u, is not entirely without exceptions. Except in Ireland, I never heard humour or humorous aspirated, though in humid and humect the h is always sounded. If this be right, it depends solely on the usage of good society, and not on rules laid down by Walker or Lindley Murray, whose authority we do not acknowledge as infallible. ”

“ There is a short poem by Philips in the same metre, addressed to Signora Cuzzoni, and dated May 25, 1724, beginning, "Little syren of the stage;" but none of the verses quoted in the Treatise on the Bathos are extracted from it.
Namby-pamby belongs to a tolerably numerous class of words in our language, all formed on the same rhyming principle. They are all familiar, and some of them childish; which last circumstance probably suggested to Pope the invention of the word namby-pamby, in order to designate the infantine style which Ambrose Philips had introduced. ”

“ DEAFNESS, CHRONIC OR ACUTE NERVOUS DEAFNESS, SINGING NOISES AND PAINS IN THE EARS.
A NEW DISCOVERY FOR RESTORING HEARING, proved to be perfectly infallible, by which many thousands of sufferers have been instantly enabled to hear the human voice in a low tone without causing one instant's pain, inconvenience, or trouble to a child, or aged nervous sufferer of either sex. This truly important discovery for the cure of deafness, obviating as it does all the former dangerous and fatal operations, has been made by the eminent aurist, DR. DAVID THOMAS, ten years Consulting Surgeon, at 14. ”

“ If, because we find in our Liturgy "an humble, lowly, and obedient heart," we are to read "an 'umble," we must also read "an 'undred, an 'ouse, an 'eap, an 'eart;" for an was prefixed in our Liturgy as well as in our translated Bible to every word beginning with h, and not (as one of your correspondents supposes) only to words beginning with silent h. Among young clergymen there is a growing habit (derived I suppose from Walker, or other such sources) of indulging in the Heapian dialect. ”

“ Having but a very moderate amount of spare time, and that at uncertain intervals, to devote to this seductive pursuit, I am always a great stickler for economy of time in all the processes, as well as for economy of material, the former with me having, perhaps, a shade more influence than the latter. ”

“ No poetical reader will require his attention to be directed to the immeasurable superiority of this glorious verse: the high poetic animation, the eagles' visits, the lovely looks of female beauty, the exhilarating gladness and joy affecting the beholder, all manifest the genius of the master bard. I shall receive it as a favour if any of your correspondents will furnish a complete copy of the original poem, and contrast it with what "Low" fancied his "improvements." ”

“ It is a fact which appears to be entirely overlooked by many operators, that the intensity of the negative is the chief agent in conducing to black tones in the positive proof; and it is almost impossible to produce them if the negative is poor and weak: and the same observation applies to a negative that has been over-exposed. ”

“ With respect to the former Hippomanes, Pliny, who detailed truth and falsehood with equal faith, says (VIII. 42.) that it grows on the foal's forehead; is of the size of a dried fig (carica) , and of a black colour; and that if the mare does not swallow it immediately, she will not let the foal suck her. Aristotle (H. A., VIII. 24.) says this is merely an old wives' tale. He mentions, however, the πώλιον, or bit of livid flesh, which we call the foal's bit, and which he says the mare ejects before the foal."—Notes, &c., p. ”

“ The labour of translation is now at an end, and the less arduous work of revision remains to be done, and then we shall see it published. I promise both you and myself much pleasure from its perusal. You will most probably find it at first less pleasing than Pope's versification, owing to the difference subsisting between blank verse and rhyme—a difference which is not sufficiently attended to, and whereby people are led into injudicious comparisons. You will find Mr. Pope more refined: Mr. Cowper more simple, grand, and majestic; and, indeed, insomuch as Mr. Pope is more refined than Mr. ”

“ Stillingfleet's Library.—The extensive and valuable library of Edward Stillingfleet, the learned Bishop of Worcester, who died in 1699, is said to be contained in the library of Primate Marsh, St. Patrick's, Dublin. Can any of your correspondents state how it came there? Was it bequeathed by the bishop, or sold by his descendants? He died at Westminster, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral. ”

“ There does not appear to have been at any time any other habitation than the shepherd's house, and another cottage a little lower down the stream, in the neighbourhood. The discovery of this cavern recalled to the recollection of myself, and some of my family, that a few years ago, in cutting a road through the rock into a whinstone quarry, about four miles south of Braidshawrigg, near a mill, we had cut across the east end of a passage somewhat similar to the one before mentioned, but running east and west ”

“ The first verse of what I take to be the original poem stands thus:
"The moon had climbed the highest hill,
Where eagles big [2] aboon the Dee,
And like the looks of a lovely dame,
Brought joy to every body's ee." ”

“ The Groaning Elm-plank in Dublin (Vol. viii., p. 309.) .—Dr. Rimbault has given an account of the groaning-board, one of the popular delusions of two centuries ago: the following notice of it, extracted from my memoir of Sir Thomas Molyneux, Bart., M.D., and published in the Dublin University for September, 1841, may interest your readers:
"In one of William Molyneux's communications he mentions the exhibition of 'the groaning elm-plank' in Dublin, a curiosity that attracted much attention and many learned speculations about the years 1682 and 1683. ”

“ Stroud Street, Dover, the first application of which gives immediate relief, restoring the hearing in the most confirmed stages of deafness, whether from old age, nervousness, or any predisposing cause, to which children and adults are subject, and from which deafness follows the heavy affliction of noises in the head and ears, immediately removed by its use. ”

“ It is notorious that large tables have been moved frequently by five or six persons, whose fingers merely touched them, although upon each was seated a stout man, weighing a hundred and fifty or sixty pounds: neither involuntary nor voluntary muscular force could have effected that physical movement, when there was no other purchase on the table than that which could be gained by a pressure of the tips of the fingers. ”

“ Π. Β. asks me for some authority for the alleged practice of Roman potters (or crock-vendors) to rub wax into the flaws of their unsound vessels. This was the very burden of my Query! I am no proficient in the Latin classics: yet I think I know enough to predicate that Π. Β. is wrong in his version of the line—
"Sincerum est nisi vas, quodcunque infundis acescit." ”

“ In the parish church of Swarkestone in Derbyshire there is a monument to Richard Harpur, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth; on which he is represented in full judicial costume, with the collar of SS., which I am told by the minister of the parish is "distinctly delineated." It may be seen in Fairholt's Costumes of England, p. 278.
As far as I am aware, this is the only instance, either on monuments or in portraits, of a puisne judge being ornamented with this decoration. Can any of your correspondents produce another example? ”

“ They believe that if a woman be delivered of seven male infants successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable fatality, becomes subject to the powers of darkness; and is compelled, on every Saturday evening, to assume the likeness of an ass. ”

“ The time and labour must have been great to cut this passage, as not more than one man could conveniently quarry the rock at the same time. It might have been supposed that this was a level to a mine, as copper has been worked in this range farther eastward; but the passage does not follow any vein, but cuts across all the strata, and keeps a straight line, till it turns westward, and then in another straight line; and the floors, sides, and roof are all made quite regular and even with a pickaxe or a hammer. ”

“ The albumen mixture is then laid on to the paper by means of a flat camel's-hair brush, about three inches broad, the mixture being first poured into a cheese plate, or other flat vessel, and all froth and bubbles carefully removed from the surface. Four longitudinal strokes with such a brush, if properly done, will cover the whole half-sheet of paper with an even thin film; but in case there are any lines formed, the brush may be passed very lightly over it again in a direction at right angles to the preceding. ”

“ It was supposed that the dam swallowed this excrescence immediately on the birth of her foal, and that, if prevented doing so, she lost all affection for it.
However, the name Hippomanes was applied to two other things. Theocritus (II. 48.) uses it to signify some herb which incites horses to madness if they eat of it.
And again, Virgil (Geor. III. 280.) , Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, &c., represent it as a certain virus:
"Hippomanes cupidæ stillat ab inguine equæ." ”

“ In answer to the 16th article, the said Earl doth insist, that by the laws and constitution of this realm, it is the undoubted right and prerogative of the Sovereign, who is the fountain of honor, to create peers of this realm, as well in time of Parliament as when there is no Parliament sitting or in being ”

“ They should be distinctly written; and care should be taken that all Quotations are copied with accuracy; and in all cases of References to Books the editions referred to should be specified. Every distinct subject should form a separate communication; all inquiries respecting communications forwarded for insertion should specify the subjects of such communications.
Our Prospectus has been reprinted at the suggestion of several Correspondents, and we shall be happy to forward copies to any friends who may desire to assist us by circulating them. ”

“ Point of Etiquette.—Will some of your numerous correspondents kindly inform me as to the rule in such a case as the following: when an elder brother has lost both his daughters in his old age, does the eldest daughter of the younger brother take the style of Miss Smith, Jones, Brown, or Robinson, as the case may be?
F. D., M.R.C.S.
Napoleon's Spelling.—Macaulay, in his History of England, chap. vii., quotes, in a foot-note, a passage from a letter of William III., written in French to his ambassador at Paris, and then makes this remark, "The spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon's." ”