Various

“ The work, however, which has given the greatest public notoriety to his name as a poetical writer, is that generally called 'Zacharie Boyd's Bible,' said to be a metrical version of the whole Scriptures—an arduous task indeed, if ever he contemplated the undertaking. But such a book as this has existed only in name, not in reality; at least, it is nowhere to be found among his works. The only one approaching to it is a metrical version of the 'Four Evangels,' which proceeds through the Gospels of the New Testament by chapter and verse.... ”

“ Patrick's time, that he banished them, "and that serpents cannot survive in Ireland," is a well-known tradition, and one universally received amongst the native Irish. In Christian symbolism it was usual to designate sin or Paganism by a serpent or dragon, and saints who converted heathen nations, or subdued the evil promptings of their own nature, were represented with a serpent or dragon beneath their feet. Thus, St. Patrick, by preaching the doctrine of the Cross, and uprooting Paganism, may be said to have banished venomous serpents from Ireland. ”

“ Mackintosh on Ogilvie's Essay on the Right of Property in Land.
At the dispersion of the library of the late Sir James Mackintosh, striking evidence of his extensive reading appeared. It seems to have been his custom to always read with a pencil in his hand, to score the remarkable passages, and to make occasional notes; generally at the end of the book he indicates the place where, and date when he read it. ”

“ But surely Johnson the commentator was no other than Johnson the lexicographer; and yet, for these precise definitions of "captious," which J. S. W. thinks "too refined and recondite" for Shakspeare's "small Latin," we need apply to no [498] higher source than to that familiar household companion—Johnson's Dictionary, wherein is anticipated the citation of Bacon, and even of the French word "captieux."
It could not therefore be from ignorance that Johnson failed to propose this recondite sense, but from a conviction that it would not represent the true meaning of Shakspeare. ”

“ I cannot say how long this custom has existed, but I have every reason to believe it is one of great antiquity. From Johnson's explanation of the term, I conclude, that this practice of making "simnels" must in former times have been more general than it is at present.
E. A. H. L.
Tennyson's "In Memoriam" (Vol. iii., pp. 142. 227. 458.) .
—I submit that the "crimson-circled star" may be named without calling on the poet to explain.
The planet Venus, when she is to the east of the sun, is our evening star (and as such used to be termed Hesperus by the ancients) . ”

“ The part cast into the sea, from which Aphrodite sprung, is here taken, by a becoming license (which softens the grossness of the old tradition) , for the whole; so that the ocean, beneath the horizon of which the evening star sinks, may be well described by the poet as "her father's grave."
That Venus is meant, the gender of the pronoun relating to the star seems to prove beyond a doubt; there being no other sufficiently important to occur in a picture of this kind, to which a female name is given. ”

“ The word locker, on board of ship, generally means the place where any particular thing is retained or kept, as "the bread locker," "shot locker," "chain locker," &c. In the sublime ode in the second chapter of the Book of Jonah, we find that the Prophet, praying for deliverance, describes his situation in the following words:
"In the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about:—the depth closed me round about:—the earth with her bars was about me."
The sea, then, might not be misappropriately termed by a rude mariner, Jonah's locker ”

“ On Cruach Padruig, in Mayo, there is a sort of tarn which still bears the name of Loch na Pheiste, or the Serpent's Lake; and one of "the Two Lakes," whence Gleandaloch derives its name, has the same appellation.
Solinus, who flourished at the close of the second century, notices, I believe, the strange fact of Ireland's having an immunity from reptiles; Isidore and Bede, in the seventh and eighth centuries, respectively repeat the assertion. Donatus, Bishop of Fesulæ, who flourished about the middle of the ninth century, says, in a Latin poem on his native country:
"Nulla venena nocent ”

“ That a funeral creates a right of way, is an error founded on the fact that, being a remarkable, and sometimes a crowded event, it is not an unfrequent evidence of the previous existence of a right of way. ”

“ The book itself is, in some respects at least, well worthy of attention, and especially at the present moment, when the subject it embraces presses itself upon all men's consideration. On emigration, for instance, Ogilvie has some anticipatory views: thus he observes with truth:
"To increase the prosperity and the happiness of the greater number, is the primary object of government, and the increase of national happiness must be the increase of national strength. ”

“ What would the author of the Spectator have thought of a writer who could unblushingly parade before the literary public such words as "relaxed orgasmus," "tabescent vitality," "monoptotes," &c.?
J. H. KERSHAW.
Burke's "mighty Boar of the Forest."
—It has been much canvassed, what induced Burke to call Junius the "mighty boar of the forest." In the thirteenth book of the Iliad I found that Idomeneus, when awaiting the attack of Æneas, is compared to the "boar of the mountains." I think it therefore probable that Burke applied the comparison (quoting, from memory) to Junius. ”

“ She means that her spring of love is inexhaustible; that, notwithstanding the constant, hopeless waste, there lacks not (a supply) "to lose still!"
Johnson was one of those commentators enumerated by MR. SINGER, of whom he observes, as a matter of surprise, "that none of them should have remarked that the sense of the Latin 'captiosus,' and of its congeners in Italian and French, is deceitful, fallacious;" ”

“ The share that Earl Godwin bore in the establishment of King Edward (the Confessor) on the throne of England seems to make it probable that Gillingham in Kent, not the Gillingham in Dorsetshire, was the scene of the council referred to by your correspondent QUIDAM. Edward, observe, was coming from the continent, and relied entirely on the support of the great East Kentish Earl. Milton names the council in his History of England, Works, vol. vi. p. ”

“ Can any correspondent of "NOTES AND QUERIES" direct me to the precise title and date of the work, or point out any better sketch of the Bishop's life?
F. K.
[In the collected Works of Bishop Hurd, 8 vols. 8vo., edit. 1811, will be found an autobiographical sketch of the Bishop, entitled "Some Occurrences in my Life," discovered among his papers after his decease. Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. vi. pp. 468-512., contains a long and interesting account of the Bishop. See also the Annual Register, vol. 1. p. 155.] ”

“ Dr. Geoffry Keating, in his History of Ireland (in the Irish language) , which he completed about the year 1625, says: "Saoilim gurab do an deamhnaibk gairmithear naithreacha nimke i m-beathaidh Patraic" ("I think that by the serpents spoken of in the life of St. Patrick were meant demons") . Serpents figure among the carvings and hieroglyphical ornaments on some of the remnants of Irish antiquity which still puzzle our antiquaries. ”

“ A regular Mull (Vol. iii., p. 449.) .
—The story of King Mûl is perhaps rather far-fetched. If it would neither put your correspondent in a stew, nor get myself into a broil, nor you into a mess or a pickle, I would settle his hash by suggesting that terms of cookery are frequently used as descriptive of disagreeable predicaments; and that though in our time nothing except beer or wine is mulled, yet it may not always have been so. Or may not the word be a corruption of muddle? I stand up for neither, but I will back either against King Mûl. ”

“ He continues:—
"We are sorry to record that the virtues of the good old times have passed away, as snakes are at this moment (June, 1834) free denizens of the County of Down, and gambolling in its shrubberies and plantings."
The particulars are as follows:
"In the summer of 1831, a gentleman, by way of experiment to ascertain whether snakes would survive in Ireland, brought from Scotland a few pair of what are usually called the common snake (Coluber natrix) . ”

“ Death of Death's Painter.
—Most persons have heard of the story of an Italian painter who embodied the idea of Death on the canvass so truthfully, that the contemplation of it caused his own death. I always thought it was fabulous, till I met with it in the translation of Vasari's Lives of the Painters, vol. ii. p. 305., now being published in Bohn's Standard Library. The name of Fivizzano is there given to the painter, and the following epigram is said to have been inscribed beneath the picture:—
"Me veram pictor divinus mente recepit. ”

“ Printsy is a word of the same formation with tricksy; and the phrase, "The printsy Angelo!" is as good English as "My tricksy Ariel!" It was probably pronounced prentsy (prenzie) in the time of Shakspeare; the word print being derived from empreinte. Sir W. Scott speaks of "a prent book," for a printed book. Besprent is the participle of besprinkle. Of similar formation with printsy and tricksy, are linsy, woolsy, and frowsy ”

“ The bawdrick is the head of the clapper, or the coupling by which it hangs on the staple inserted in the crown of the bell. It is fitted on to the head of the clapper, and a lining of leather is inserted to prevent the creaking of the iron, when the end of the clapper is oscillating. ”

“ Theory of the Earth's Form (Vol. iii., p. 331.)
—Who first taught that the form of the earth was that of a sphere? In Isaiah xl. 22. appears the following passage:
He that sitteth upon the CIRCLE of the earth and the inhabitants thereof," &c.
Does not this extract prove that the Jews, as a people, were acquainted with the spherical form of the earth in Isaiah's time; the prophets usually addressing the people in popular language. ”

“ Chaucer and Gray.
—Of all the oft-quoted lines from Gray's Elegy, there is not one which is more frequently introduced than the well-known
"E'en, in our ashes live their wonted fires."
Now Gray was an antiquary, and there is no doubt too well read in Chaucer. Is it too much, [493] therefore, to suggest that he owed this line to one in Chaucer's "Reves Prologue:"
"Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken." ”

“ Without regard to the original value of the soil, the gross amount of property in land is the fittest subject of taxation; and could it be made to support the whole expense of the public, great advantages would arise to all orders of men. ”

“ It is for the antithesis I contend, as a key to the true sense intended by Shakspeare: the whole play is full of antitheses, uttered especially by Helena;—and certainly, if we recognise the allusion to the Danaïdes (as who will not?) , we cannot, without depriving it of half its force and beauty, receive "captious" in the sense of "deceptious." The Danaïdes were not deceived—the essence of their punishment was utter absence of hope ”

“ Latin, natrix; English, adder. The epithet nimhe, poison, is often added, and a compound word made, nathair-neimhe.
Peist, a word I have before alluded to, is analogous with the Latin best-ia, and means a worm, a beast, as well as a serpent.
EIRIONNACH.
CANONS AND ARTICLES OF 1571. Dearest Sir,
Yours of the 4th I showed to Mr. Baker, who desires me to tell you, that the Canons of 1571, with the subscriptions, are (as the Articles) in paper bound up in the same volume of the Synodalia, and stand there next to the "Articles of 1571" subscribed by the Archbishop and ten Bishops. ”

“ William Hone (Vol. iii., p. 477.) .
—I expect that A. N. is labouring under a mistake in inquiring about an account of the "conversion" of "William Hone, THE COMPILER of the Every-day Book;" and that he means
"The Early Life and Conversion of William Hone, a narrative written by himself, edited by his SON, William Hone, author of the Every-day Book, &c. London, J. Ward & Co., Paternoster Row, 1841. One Shilling."
I have no doubt that the work may be procured at the publishers'; but should not that be practicable, I shall be happy to lend your correspondent my copy. ”

“ In Chaucer the sentiment it embodies is satirical:—
"For whan we may not don, than wol we speken,
Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken."
In Gray, on the other hand, it is the moralist who solemnly declares:
"E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires."
But the coincidence cannot surely be accidental.
WILLIAM J. THOMS.
Shakspeare Family.
—In the Rotulorum Patentium et Clausorum Cancellariæ Hiberniæ Calendarium, vol. i. pars i. p. 99 b. ”

“ Mr. Zacharie Boyd was never Principal or a Professor in Glasgow College: the only office he ever held in the college was that of Lord Rector (an honorary office annually elected) , which he held in the years 1634, 1635, 1645. He was a great benefactor to the college, to which he left 20,000l. Scots, for buildings and bursaries.
The crypt below Glasgow Cathedral, called St. Mungo's Crypt, was the barony church in Zacharie's time, and where he preached; it is this same place which Sir Walter Scott so well describes in Rob Roy (vol. ii. chap. 3., edition in 48 vols.) ”