"Le BalafrÉ."—I was surprised to see that Miss Strickland, in the three volumes published of the Lives of the Queens of Scotland, always ascribes this well-known sobriquet to Francis, second Duke of Guise, instead of his son Henry, third duke. This is a mistake which I should have thought the merest tyro in history could not have committed about persons of so much note, and affords another instance of what Messrs. Macaulay and Alison had already exemplified, that writers of the most profound research will often err as to matters which lie, as it were, on the very surface.

J. S. Warden.

Macpherson's "Ossian."—It would appear as if Macpherson had picked up his information about British history in the pages of a kindred spirit, Geoffrey of Monmouth, for certainly he could have found in no other writer that Caracalla and Carausius were cotemporaries.

J. S. Warden.

Epitaph from Tichfield.—The curious epitaph which I inclose was copied, as closely as possible, from a monument in Tichfield Church, Hants. You may perhaps think it worthy of a place in "N. & Q."

Rubi.

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" Richard III., Act V. Sc. 4.—In the edition of the Walewein published by Professor Jonckbloet, Leyden, 1846, is found, vol. ii. p. 178., a remarkable parallel passage to the world-famed line of Shakspeare, the verses 16007-8 of the Lancelot, a romance of the Middle Ages:

J. M.

Weight of American Revolutionary Officers.—On the 10th of August, 1778, the American officers at West Point were weighed, with the following result:

Only three of the eleven weighed less than two hundred pounds,—a result which does not confirm the AbbÉ Raynal's theory of the deterioration of mankind in America.

Uneda.

Philadelphia.

The Patronymic "Mac."—The Inverness Courier of 1823 gives a list of genuine Celtic surnames beginning with Mac, amounting to no less than 392.

Kirkwallensis.

Erroneous Forms of Speech.—Should you consider the following as worth a place in your publication, they are at your service.

1. The much used word Teetotal is wrong: it ought to be written Teatotal. It implies the use of tea, instead of intoxicating liquors: that was its original meaning. Let us return to the proper spelling. Better late than never.

2. The expression, lately become very common, "Up to the present time," and so forth, is wrong. It ought to be "Down to the present time." The stream of time, like all other streams, is always descending. In tracing a thing backwards, from the present time, it is quite right to use the word up.

3. The words down and up are much misapplied by the inhabitants of the provinces in another sense, not knowing, or forgetting that, par excellence, London is considered the highest locality: from every place, how high soever its position, it is "up to London," and to every such place, it is "down from London." In London itself, St. Paul's Cathedral is considered as the highest or central point; and in every street radiating from that point, it is up when going towards it, and down when going from it. In going from St. Paul's to the Poultry we go down Cheapside.

4. The inhabitants of provincial towns and cities are much in the habit of saying such a person is not "in town" to-day. That is wrong: they ought to say "in the town." The word town is, par excellence, applicable to London alone.

Robert Smart.

Sunderland.

Hexameters from Udimore Register.—The following hexameters are copied from the fly-leaf of a register-book which dates back to 1500. They were written by a vicar in Elizabeth's reign. The burden of the lament is, that the tithes, now worth about 500l. a-year, had been sold by a "sordid unprophetick priest" for 30l. per annum, and that consequently all his successors found themselves "vicars without tithes." The register-book is in the church of Udimore, near Rye, in Sussex:

J. Mn.

Dr. Johnson.—The parchment containing the grant of the freedom of the city of Aberdeen to the "Literary Colossus," in 1773, once the property of Mrs. Piozzi, was sold in Manchester in August, 1823, to an eminent bookseller in Bond Street.

Kirkwallensis.

Borrowed Thoughts.—We often hear the man who, from his more advanced position, looks with contempt on the wisdom of past ages, likened to the child mounted on his father's shoulder, and boasting that he is the taller of the two.

This no new idea. It is probably derived immediately from Mr. Macaulay, who in his Essay on Sir James Mackintosh says:

"The men to whom we owe it that we have a House of Commons are sneered at because they did not suffer the debates of the House to be published. The authors of the Toleration Act are treated as bigots, because they did not go the whole length of Catholic Emancipation. Just so we have heard a baby, mounted on the shoulders of its father, cry out, 'How much taller I am than Papa!'"

But it may be traced farther; for hear what Butler says (Hudibras, ii. 71.):

Erica.

Warwick.

Suggested Reprints.—Acting on the suggestion of J. M., I make a note of the following:

"Joshua Sprigge's Anglia Rediviva, London, 1647, gives a florid but authentic and sufficient account of this new-model army in all its features and operations by which England had come alive again. A little sparing in dates, but correct when they are given. None of the old books are better worth reprinting."—Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell.

I would remark, also, that there are very few collections of maxims so good and profitable to the present time as Francis Quarles' Enchiridion, London, 1702, 12mo. A reprint would be very useful. There is an article thereon in the Retrospective Review, vol. v. p. 180.

K. P. D. E.