Various

“ The monks became printers instead of scribes; but they would not ordinarily convert their churches or chapels into printing-houses. The workmen, it is true, term the meetings held for consultation on their common interests or pleasures, their chapels; and whether this may have arisen from any particular instance in which a chapel was converted into a printing-house, I cannot say. In order to ascertain the origin of this term these Queries may be proposed:—Is it peculiar to printers and to this country? ”

“ The soul, says Aristotle, when on the point of taking its departure from the body, foretells and prophesies things about to happen.
Divination at Marriages.—The following practices are very prevalent at marriages in these districts; and as I do not find them noticed by Brand in the last edition of his Popular Antiquities, they may perhaps be thought worthy a place in the "NOTES AND QUERIES."
1. Put a wedding ring into the posset, and after serving it out, the unmarried person whose cup contains the ring will be the first of the company to be married. ”

“ Ross perhaps is not aware that the prohibition of publication of speeches rests on a foundation independent of the old sessional order against the presence of strangers,—on a series of resolutions declaring publication to be a breach of the privileges of Parliament, to be found in the Journals of 1642, 1694, 1695, 1697, 1703, 1722, and 1724.
We unfortunately cannot settle in your columns whether, as Mr. Ross asserts, "if a member in debate should inadvertently allude to the possibility of his observations being heard by a stranger, the Speaker would immediately call him to order;" ”

“ The Tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey is fast mouldering into irretrievable decay. A sum of One Hundred Pounds will effect a perfect repair. The Committee have not thought it right to fix any limit to the subscription, they themselves have opened the list with a contribution from each of them of Five Shillings; but they will be ready to receive any amount, more or less, which those who value poetry and honour Chaucer may be kind enough to remit to them. ”

“ In sleep, the unity is weakened but not ended: hence, in sleep, the material being dead, the immaterial, or divine principle, wanders unguided, like a gentle breeze over the unconscious strings of an Æolian harp ”

“ Sometimes I content myself with an order from a member, which takes me into the hinder seats of the non-reporting strangers' gallery; sometimes, when I know beforehand of an interesting debate, I get one of my friends to put my name on the "Speaker's list," and I then take my seat on one of the two front rows of the strangers' gallery; sometimes, again, I go down on the chance, while the House is sitting ”

“ The Druids, as Southey tells us, "made the people pass through the fire in honour of Baal." But the festival in honour of Baal appears to have been in the autumn: for
"They made the people," he informs us, "at the beginning of winter, extinguish all their fires on one day and kindle them again from the sacred fire of the Druids, which would make the house fortunate for the ensuing year; and, if any man came who had not paid his yearly dues, [Easter offerings, &c., date back as far as this!] ”

“ We must not look for the delicate apprehension and tact, which can only be formed in a highly polished state of society, nor for the indignation of insulted morality expressed by the ancients: it is altogether a caricature, not of finished individual portraits, but of a single type;—a clownish sensual German priest, his intellect narrowed by stupid wonder and fanatical hatred, who relates with silly naïveté and gossiping confidence the various absurd and scandalous situations into which he falls. ”

“ Ross goes on to say, "the right honourable gentlemen will listen complacently to discussions arising out of the complaints of members that strangers will not publish to the world all that they hear pass in debate." ”

“ There was in Tara a royal foundation of this kind, wherein none were admitted but virgins of the noblest blood. It was called Cluain-Feart, or the place of retirement till death," &c ... "The duty of these virgins was to keep up the fires of Bel, or the sun, and of Sambain, or the moon, which customs they borrowed from their Phoenician ancestors. ”

“ I have made these extracts somewhat more at length than may, perhaps, be to the point in question, because they contain much that is highly interesting as to the apparently questionable mode in which the Hospitallers obtained the protection of the courts (and probably they were not singular in their proceedings) ; annual pensions to judges, besides other largesses, and much of this "pro favore habendo," contrasts painfully with the "spotless purity of the ermine" which dignifies our present age.
In the "extent" we have occasionally a grange held rent free for life by a judge. ”

“ Pythagoras the Samian, and some others of the ancient philosophers, showed that the souls of men were immortal, and that, when they were on the point of separating from the body, they possessed a knowledge of futurity. ”

“ Whether the prejudice against the north side of our churchyard arose from an idea that it was unconsecrated, I cannot tell but I suspect that, from inherited dislike, the poor are still indisposed towards it. When the women of the village have to come to the vicarage after nightfall, they generally manage to bring a companion, and hurry past the gloomy end of the north transept as if they knew ”

“ The Dialogue (Mire Festivus) , which in the edition of 1710 occurs between the first and second parts of the Epistolæ, bears especial marks of Hutten's manner, and is doubtless by him. The interlocutors are three of the illustrious obscure, Magisters Ortuinus, Lupoldus, and Gingolphus, and the first act of the comedy consists in their observations upon the promoters of learning, Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Faber Stapulensis, who afterwards make their appearance, and the discussion becomes general, but no impression can be made upon the stupid and prejudiced monks. ”

“ And this is the case. The House, of course, retains the power of excluding them at any moment. They are always made to withdraw before the House goes to a division. This is a matter of practice, founded probably on some supposed reasons of convenience. Again, on any member desiring strangers to be excluded, the Speaker desires them to withdraw, without allowing any discussion.
I have only to notice one other observation of Mr. Ross's, which is the following:
"When I speak of strangers being admitted, it must not be supposed that this was done by order of the House. ”

“ Peep of Day.—Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, p. 428., ed. 1., remarks that the ideas of light and sound are sometimes confounded; and in support of his observation he quotes passages of Danish and German poets in which the sun and moon are said to pipe (pfeifen) . In further illustration of this usage, he also cites the words "the sun began to peep," from a Scotch ballad in Scott's Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 430. In p. 431. he explains the words "par son l'aube," which occur in old French poets, by "per sonitum auroræ;" and compares the English expression, "the peep of day." ”

“ Perhaps some of your more learned contributors will obligingly help me to the true import of these words?
J. Sansom.
Minor Queries.
Charade.—Can any one tell who is the author of the following charade? No doubt, the lines are well known to many of your readers, although I have never seen them in print. It has been said that Dr. Robinson, a physician, wrote them. It strikes me that the real author, whoever he be, richly deserves to be named in "Notes and Queries."
"Me, the contented man desires,
The poor man has, the rich requires ”

“ This may refer to the translation only; but as Caxton was both translator and printer, it does not seem unreasonable to regard it as indicating when his entire labour upon the work was brought to a close. I might support the view that Caxton printed at Cologne by other arguments which would make the matter tolerably certain (see Life of Caxton, p. 125., &c.) ”

“ Paul's school, could make any thing out of it. Mr. Sammes may be right, who judges it to have been Punic. I imagine if we call it Irish we shall not err much. No doubt but what it was a memorial of the founders, wrote by the Druids and had it been preserved till now, would have been an invaluable curiosity."
Can you or any of your contributors give me any further information about this inscription?
2. The Doctor continues,
"To make the reader some amends for such a loss I have given a specimen of supposed Druid writing, out of Lambecius' account of the Emperor's library at Vienna. ”

“ In the session of 1849 a Select Committee, composed of fifteen members, and including the leading men of all parties, was appointed "to consider the present practice of this House in respect of the exclusion of strangers." The following is the Report of the Committee in extenso (Parl. Pap., No. 498. Sess. 1849) :
"That the existing usage of excluding strangers during a division, and upon the notice by an individual Member that strangers are present, has prevailed from a very early period of parliamentary history ”

“ Your son-in-law shows far more fair than black."
Othello, Act i. Sc. 3.
Passing by the cool impertinence of one editor, who asserts that Shakspeare frequently used the past for the present participle, and the almost equally cool correction of another, who places the explanatory note "*delightful" at the bottom of the page, I will merely remark that the two latest editors of Shakspeare, having apparently nothing to say on the subject, have very wisely said nothing. Yet, as we understand the term "delighted," the passage surely needs explanation. ”

“ Communications of inedited Legends, Notices of remarkable Customs and Popular Observances, Rhyming Charms, &c. are earnestly solicited, and will be thankfully acknowledged by the Editor. They may be addressed to the care of Mr. BELL, Office of "NOTES AND QUERIES," 186. Fleet Street.
Vols. I. and II. 8vo., price 28s. cloth.
THE JUDGES OF ENGLAND; from the TIME of the CONQUEST. By EDWARD FOSS, F.S.A.
"A work in which a subject of great historical importance is treated with the care, diligence, and learning it deserves; in which Mr. ”

“ It did not keep them out certainly, for they were admitted in the teeth of it; but so long as that sessional order was in force, prohibition to strangers was the theory.
Mr. Ross refers to publication of speeches. Publication is still prohibited in theory. Mr. ”

“ CAXTON'S PRINTING-OFFICE. (Vol. ii., p. 99.)
Mr. Rimbault is wrong in giving to Abbot Milling the honour of being the patron of Caxton, which is due to Abbot Esteney. Mr. C. Knight in his Life of Caxton, which appropriately formed the first work of his series of Weekly Volumes, has the following remarks upon the passage from Stow, quoted by Mr. Rimbault:
"The careful historians of London here committed one error ”

“ Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum.—Your Querist H.B.C. (Vol. ii., pp. 55-57.) will find, in the 53rd vol. Edinb. Rev. p. 180., a long article on these celebrated letters, containing much of the information required. It is worthy of remark, that in page 195. we are told
"In 1710 there was printed in London the most elegant edition that has ever appeared of these letters, which the editor, Mich. ”