Various

“ You could not have intended to warn the Christian world against indulging in similar imprudences; for you well know that in the present day, society has not the smallest tendency that way. You could not mean to warn the Brethren against the recurrence of the same absurdities; for you acknowledge yourself that they have already for a long period risen superior to them ”

“ To trace a family likeness for a century is not at all uncommon. Any one who knows the face of the present Duke of Manchester will see a strong likeness to his great ancestor, through six generations, the Earl of Manchester of the Commonwealth, as engraved in Lodge's Portraits. ”

“ We learn from The Athenæum of Saturday last that the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Copenhagen, whose works illustrative of the early history both of Greenland and America are known to many of our readers, are about to publish a new edition of the Orkneyinga Saga, and sundry old Northern fragments relative to Great Britain and Ireland; and in the prosecution of this important and useful object they are desirous of having the assistance and co-operation of the scholars and antiquaries of this country. ”

“ Is such a man proper to be publicly called forth as a witness against a church which he had deserted from no excess of virtue; against a church which, yourself being judge, has, by its silent but honorable exertions, first glorified God among the heathen, and then stimulated the rest of the Christian world to engage in similar attempts ”

“ As an active verb it is now obsolete, but it is still in use, at least its participles are in a passive sense. I have frequently heard crabbing used to describe the state of mind of one out of humour or sulking. Crabbed has long been an English word, and as such has its place in Johnson's Dictionary. It is not in such common use to the south as it is to the north of the Tweed; but from the Land's End to John-o'-Groat's, it is used to designate a chronic form of the same failing, which, in its temporary form, is described above as "crabbing." ”

“ To suppose that Hamlet gets forth his tables for the purpose of setting down a common-place truism, because he has reserved no place for such matters in the table of his memory, is surely to materialise a fine poetical image by contrasting it with a substantial matter of fact operation. ”

“ You were merely amusing yourself, like the boys in the fable, unmindful that your sport might perhaps prove death to a set of poor frogs. But ought you not to have remembered the golden rule of Christ, never to do unto others what you would not choose to have done to yourself? ”

“ The word taliter seems to be not rendered at all. Without wishing to provoke theological controversy, I should ask, by what authority, and at what date, was the English translation imposed upon the clergy and graduates, all of whom understand Latin? Is it affirmed that the English renders the Latin fully, or is the English translation avowedly intended to fall short? I will not ask the meaning of the word taliter in the minds of those who imposed the Latin subscription, because answers might provoke the inadmissible kind of controversy. ”

“ The publication therefore of a History of Gustavus Vasa, with Extracts from his Correspondence,—which, although based upon the narrative of his startling adventures, his gallant exploits, and the picture of his manly sincere character, and his quaint but telling eloquence, given by Geijer in his History of Sweden, has been carefully elaborated by references to original authorities, and rendered more picturesque by the introduction of copious extracts from his correspondence,—is good service rendered to the cause of historic truth. The writer is obviously an earnest, able, and painstaking man ”

“ The more so, because the natural hesitation which must be felt, in any case, when challenging for the first time the correctness of a generally received reading, is, in this instance, greatly augmented, by finding that an illustrious commenter upon Shakspeare—himself a great and congenial poet—has conferred a special approbation upon the old reading, by choosing it out as an item in his appreciation of Hamlet's character. ”

“ In Leicestershire it is common for the wives of farmers to style their husbands "the Master," and husbands to call their wives "Mamy;" and a labourer will often distinguish his wife by the title of "the O'man." There are people now living who remember the time when Goody and Dame, "Gaffer" and "Gammer," were in vogue among the peasantry.
KT.
Ambassadors addressed as Peers (Vol. v., p. 213.) .
—I must leave you to judge whether a reference to Howell's Familiar Letters is likely to be new to your correspondent MR. J. G. NICHOLS, or of any service to him in his inquiry on this subject. ”

“ After the waste of much blood and treasure, the Yankoos were at last subdued by the New Englandmen. The remains of this nation (agreeable to the Indian custom) transferred their name to their conquerors. For a while they were called Yankoos; but from a corruption, common to names in all languages, they got through time the name of Yankee."—New York Gazetteer, June 1, 1775.
R. H.
Indian Jugglers; Ballad of Ashwell Thorp (Vol. iv., p. 472.) .
—The correspondent who inquires about the Indian jugglers' trick of "growing a mango," is referred to Blomfield's History of Norfork, vol. v. p. 155. ”

“ It is therefore proposed to raise a fund for the perfect restoration of the Tomb of the TRADESCANTS, according to its original form, as represented in two drawings preserved in the Pepysian Library at Cambridge, and also for renewing ASHMOLE's epitaph. The cost will not be less than 100l., and assistance is earnestly requested from all who are anxious to preserve ancient monuments, especially those who are following the same pursuits as the TRADESCANTS, and who are daily deriving benefit and delight from the labours and discoveries of these first of English gardeners and naturalists. ”

“ Shuttle, Sluice, Valve, Clough, Paddle: these five names are synonyms; they mean that portion of the apparatus which slides, or is drawn up and let down, to inclose or let out the water of an artificial stream or reservoir.
Swallow: the inner portion of the culvert, or the throat which leads from the inner side of the reservoir to the "shuttle," the outer portion being the supply-culvert.
Valve: an apparatus to retain or let out water, steam, &c. A valve may slide as the shuttle, paddle, or sluice must do; or it may rise with a spindle, vertically, as in the safety-valve of a steam boiler ”

“ South, in a note in his first Sermon on Covetousness (vol. iv. p. 448., 4th edition, 1727) , tells us of a lawyer, "a confident of the rebels," who recommended that the Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Charles I., should be bound "to some good trade, that so he might eat his bread honestly." He then expresses wonder that Charles II. made this lawyer a judge; a practice, he adds, and doubtless with a meaning, "not unusual in the courts of some princes, to encourage and prefer their mortal enemies, before their truest friends." ”

“ The explanation given by J. SANSOM of the Devonian use of the term helling or heleing, signifying the roof or covering of a church, corresponds to the Midland meaning of the word hilling, s. bed-clothes or coverlet: "She has got no hilling at all." Ger. Hüllen, to wrap one's self up; Saxon, hilan. In Warwickshire used for the covers of a book: "It is the hilling which makes it so expensive." Hilled, p. hilled up, i.e. covered with bed-clothes. Leicestershire is particularly rich in quaint phrases and proverbs. ”

“ All the artizans in the kingdom come with their wares—jewellers, silversmiths,—and have free leave from all parts of the world to profit by general licence from the Carnival to Easter. They compute the loss at six millions of livres, which these poor creatures have sustained, not one of which have saved a single shilling, and many fled out in their shirts, and have not only lost their goods and merchandize, but all the money they have been taking these six weeks. ”

“ The usual explanation, with a reference to Chaucer, will be found in Blount's Glossographia, and in Philips's World of Words, as well as in the folio edition of Bailey's Dictionary, where it is well defined "to be nonplussed, to be at one's wit's end."
Mr. Inglis's note to his translation of Richard de Bury's Philobiblion, which is taken from Billingsley, points out the connexion between the words Ellefuga and Dulcarnon, which, as he says, "have been a pons asinorum to some good Grecians." ”

“ When Southey's animadversions appeared, they were replied to by "William Okely, M.D., Presbyter of the Brethren's Church, and Minister of their Congregation at Bristol," in a letter written in a good-humoured style, yet caustic withal. Unfortunately, as long as Southey's work lasts the poison will remain, while the antidote will be forgotten. The Doctor observes:
"What could possibly induce you, with such ill-judged eagerness, to rake into the kennels of oblivion? Why do you exhibit among your authorities the publications of such a vile fellow as Rimius? ”

“ Evans, in his Leicestershire Words, says:
"The true name of the town, according to Peck, is Hocks Norton, but vulgarly pronounced Hogs Norton. The organist to this parish church was named Piggs."
But in Witt's Recreations, of which I have a copy of 1640, the eighty-third epigram is "upon pigs devouring a bed of penny-royal, commonly called organs:"
"A good wife once, a bed of organs set,
The pigs came in, and eat up every whit;
The goodman said, Wife, you your garden may
Hogs Norton call, here pigs on organs play."
Organs from "organy;" French, origan; Latin, origanum. ”

“ It has continually appeared to me as a great absurdity, that the terms masculine and feminine should be applied to inanimate things in the French language, when common sense is opposed to such a distinction. ”

“ I believe a new edition is, or shortly will be, in the press.
J. B. WHITBORNE.
Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
So long as the people of this country are animated by that deep-rooted love of true liberty and national independence, which have proved at so many momentous periods of our history to be at once their ruling principle and the country's safeguard, so long will the memory of Gustavus Vasa, the patriotic king of Sweden, be to all Englishmen an object of the deepest interest. ”

“ Alexander Neckham, an ancient writer, in his booke De Naturis rerum, compoundeth this word of Dulia and Caro, and will have Dulcarnon to be quasi sacrificium carnis. Chaucer aptly applieth it to Creseide in this place: showing that she was as much amazed how to answer Troilus, as Pythagoras was wearied to bring his desire to effect."
Master Speght is somewhat in error in his solution: let us hear another expositor. I have mentioned in your pages the existence of a translation into rhymed Latin verse of the whole of Chaucer's Troilus, with a copious commentary by Sir Francis Kynaston ”

“ Certainly no men can be more effectually flemed than Gog and Magog were.
But as to the point of being "at one's wits end," no one can be so little conversant with human affairs as the inmates of the iron wall. Knowledge depends much on place. So sailors say, "he has been before."
I have only an uncommented text of Chaucer. ”

“ But I wish that every honest man might enjoy his own."
[2] According to some reciters, "Dutch."
C. W. G.
Minor Notes. A Note on Henry III.
—In Vol. v., p. 28., is the Query, "Are our Lists of English Sovereigns completed?" Some further illustration of the case of the king usually styled Henry III., to which particular attention was directed, may be derived from the subjoined extract taken from a MS. (No. 146.) in the University Library at Cambridge. The MS. is a parchment roll containing a "genealogical tree" of the kings of England, with brief notices written in the fifteenth century. ”

“ Young had bribed the then under-gardener to allow him to bury "Narcissa," and would thus prove that the tradition existed at that time at Montpellier.
There is also in a retired part of the Botanic Garden (established by Henry IV.) a stone bearing an inscription to "Narcissa," as mentioned in Murray's Hand-Book, placed there probably in consequence of that tradition. Moreover, it is believed, in the family of a gentleman of Montpellier, that his maternal grandfather saw Dr. Young and his step-daughter at Montpellier about the year 1741 ”

“ Lord Delamere being one of his sureties. A fine to that amount was inflicted on him, but he appealed from the judgment to the House of Lords, where one of his warmest advocates was Lord Delamere. Vague reports of these proceedings would find their way into the North, where the matter would be handled by the balladmongers in a style congenial to the manners and ideas of their rustic auditory. Lord Delamere is described by a cotemporary versifier as
"Fit to assist to pull a tyrant down,
But not to please a prince that mounts the throne." ”

“ The learned professor exhibited four Icelandic planispheres and maps of the world, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and made some observations on the geographical and astronomical knowledge of the ancient Scandinavians. The second volume of the Arna-Magnean Committee's edition of Snorro Sturleson's, or the Younger Edda, was also nearly finished, and preparations were being made for the publication of an Icelandic Diplomaticum. ”

“ Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertooke for the child at baptism, called each other by the name of God-sib, that is, of kin together through God ”

“ FOLK LORE. Burning Fern brings Rain.
—In a volume containing miscellaneous collections by Dr. Richard Pococke, in the British Museum, MS. Add. 15,801, at fol. 33. is the copy of a letter written by Philip Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, to the Sheriff of Staffordshire, which illustrates a curious popular belief of the period, from which even the king was not free. ”

“ THE TIMES NEWSPAPER.—Important Notice to the Public.—How frequently does it happen to various members of society that they wish to purchase a copy or copies of the previous dates of "The Times?" For historical, legal, commercial, and social purposes, their possession may be anxiously desired, and yet, how difficult it frequently is to procure them; indeed, sometimes, from their scarcity, it is quite impossible. ”