Egg and Arrow Ornament.—Mr. Ruskin, in his Stones of Venice, vol. i. p. 305., says—

"The Greek egg and arrow cornice is a nonsense cornice, very noble in its lines, but utterly absurd in its meaning. Arrows have had nothing to do with eggs (at least since Leda's time), neither are the so-called arrows like arrows, nor the eggs like eggs, nor the honeysuckles like honeysuckles: they are all conventionalized into a monotonous successiveness of nothing—pleasant to the eye, useless to the thought."

The ornament of which Mr. R. thus speaks is indifferently called egg and tongue, egg and dart, as well as egg and arrow. It seems to me that the egg is a complete misnomer, although common to all the designations; and I fancy that the idea of what is so called was originally derived from the full-length shield, and therefore that the ornament should be named the shield and dart, an association more reasonable than is suggested by any of the ordinary appellations. Can any of your correspondents offer any confirmation of this?

B. J.

Liverpool, March 31. 1851.

Defoe's Project for purifying the English Language.—Among the many schemes propounded by De Foe, in his Essay upon Projects, published in 1696, there is one which still remains a theory, although eminently practicable, and well worthy of consideration.

He conceived that there might be an academy or society formed for the purpose of correcting, purifying, and establishing the English language, such as had been founded in France under Cardinal Richelieu.

"The work of this society," says Defoe, "should be to encourage polite learning, to polish and refine the English tongue, and advance the so much neglected faculty of correct language; also, to establish purity and propriety of style, and to purge it from all the irregular additions that ignorance and affectation have introduced; and all these innovations of speech, if I may call them such, which some dogmatic writers have the confidence to foster upon their native language, as if their authority were sufficient to make their own fancy legitimate."

Never was such society more needed than in the present day, when you can scarcely take up a newspaper, or a periodical, a new poem, or any modern literary production, without finding some new-coined word, perplexing to the present reader, and a perfect stumbling-block in the way of any future editor.

Some of these words are, I admit, a welcome addition to our common stock, but the greater part of them are mere abortions, having no analogy to any given root.

A society similar to the one proposed by Defoe might soon be established in this country, if a few such efficient authorities as Dr. Kennedy would take the initiative in the movement.

He who should first establish such a society, and bring it to a practicable bearing, would be conferring an inestimable boon on society.

I trust that these hints may serve to arouse the attention of some of the many talented contributors to the "Notes and Queries," and in due season bring forth fruit.

David Stevens.

Godalming, April 19. 1851.

Great Fire of London.—Our popular histories of England, generally, contain very indefinite statements respecting the extent of destruction wrought upon the city of London by the Great Fire. I have therefore thought it may be interesting to others, as it has been to myself, to peruse the following, which purports to be "extracted from the Certificates of the Surveyors soon after appointed to survey the Ruins."

"That the fire that began in London upon the second of September, 1666, at one Mr. Farryner's house, a baker in Pudding Lane, between the hours of one and two in the morning, and continued burning until the sixth of that month, did overrun the space of three hundred and seventy-three acres within the walls of the city of London, and sixty-three acres three roods without the walls. There remained seventy-five acres three roods standing within the walls unburnt. Eighty-nine parish churches, besides chappels burnt. Eleven parishes within the walls standing. Houses burnt, Thirteen thousand two hundred.

"JONAS MOORE, "RALPH GATRIX,

Brace

Surveyors."

I copy this from a volume of tracts, printed 1679 to 1681; chiefly "Narratives" of judicial and other proceedings relating to the (so called) "Popish Plots" in the reign of Charles II.

Wm. Franks Mathews.

Noble or Workhouse Names—

"The only three noble names in the county were to be found in the great house [workhouse]; mine [Berners] was one, the other two were Devereux and Bohun."—Lavengro, iii. 232.

The above extract reminds me of a list of names of the poor about St. Alban's, which I forwarded some months since, viz. Brax, Brandon, De Amer, De Ayton, Fitzgerald, Fitz John, Gascoigne, Harcourt, Howard, Lacey, Stanley, Ratcliffe.

A. C.