  Old Lines newly revived.—The old lines of spondees and dactyls are just now applicable:— Conturbabantur Constantinopolitani Innumerabilibus solicitudinibus." Harlow. Inscription near Cirencester.—In Earl Bathurst's park, near Cirencester, stands a building—the resort in the summer months of occasional pic-nic parties. During one of these visits, at which I
Wordsworth.—In Wordsworth's touching "Lament of Mary Queen of Scots," one of the stanzas opens with: "Born all too high; by wedlock rais'd Still higher, to be brought thus low!" Is it straining a point to suppose that the author has here translated the opening words of the well-known epitaph on the Empress Matilda, mother of our Henry II.? "Ortu magna; viro major; sed maxima prole; Hic jacet Henrici filia, sponsa, parens." Sunningdale. "Magna est Veritas et prÆvalebit."—I was asked the other day whence came this hackneyed quotation. It is taken from the uncanonical Scriptures, 3 Esdras iv. 41.:
"Putting your Foot into it."—The legitimate origin of this term I have seen thus explained. Perhaps it may pass as correct until a better be found. According to the Asiatic Researches, a very curious mode of trying the title to land is practised in Hindostan. Two holes are dug in the disputed spot, in each of which the lawyers on either side put one of their legs, and remain there until one of them is tired, or complains of being stung by insects, in which case his client is defeated. An American writer has remarked that in the United States it is generally the client, and not the lawyer, "who puts his foot in it." Malta. |
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