RELICS OF BURNS (4th S. vii. 451.)—At this reference you give some relics of Burns. The last couplet, and apparently the most doubtful one, I can prove to be true. At least forty years ago I was travelling in Scotland, and stopped to bait at Brownhill Inn, the place where your incident is said to have occurred. As we were waiting while the horse was being fed, the driver said to me— "In this very inn yard I saw our great poet Burns. He was washing himself in the horsetrough, having apparently been drinking all night. Just at that moment a grey-coated parson came out, having slept at the inn. The ostler brought out his horse, and before he got on it the parson said to the ostler (taking fourpence out of his pocket) "You see I ought to give you all this fourpence, but I shall want to pay threepence for the ferry hard by, so I can only give you a penny." Burns, who had been looking on all the time, roared out the lines you have quoted, only slightly different

GNATS versus MOSQUITOES (4th S. vii. 352, 416, 505.)-It was stated during a very hot summer two or three years ago that mosquitoes had appeared in England for the first time. We have two kinds in this country-the noisy and the mute but the bites are equally disagreeable. There is a common weed in this country, which I suppose is known in England, called pennyroyal, growing in poor land and on turnpike roads, to which mosquitoes have a special dislike, although the smell is agreeable to most persons. Pieces of it spread about a room will drive away mosquitoes. If mosquitoes have become naturalised in England, which would not require an act of parliament, this prescription may be of service.

Philadelphia.

M. E.

the autobiography of Thomas Hardy, was well known at the time; but as it was current in Lincoln's Inn something better than half a century back, it differed somewhat from Mr. Hardy's story. The Lincoln's Inn story, as I heard it, ran as follows:- Mr. Kant, personally a total stranger to Mr. Erskine, out of admiration for his eloquence and public character, devised his estate to him. On Mr. Kant's death his attorney came up to London to have the pleasure of announcing so flattering a fact to the great forensic orator, and took occasion to mention how heartily he sympathised with his client in his admiration of the devisee, and the particular happiness he had in himself preparing the will. Mr. Erskine was very susceptible of being pleased by praise or even flattery, and the announcement naturally procured the attorney a most cordial reception. In the midst of Erskine's warm and energetic expressions of his pleasure and thanks, the attorney said,-" Mr. Erskine, to make the matter doubly sure, after Mr. Kant had executed his will, I made him levy a fine." The future chancellor, though not much of a real-property lawyer, did know the effect of levying a fine upon a will, and jumping up cried out, "You d-d eternal fool, you have revoked the will," and all but kicked the attorney down

stairs.

J. H. C.

OUR LADY OF HOLYWELL (4th S. vii. 475.)— There is a village of Holywell, part of the parish of Castle-Bytham, in Lincolnshire. It has a park and mansion, and the Great Northern main line passes close by; it is not above seven miles from Stamford, and from the county boundary of Rutland only about a mile. A reference to any county guide-book or directory would have saved the Editor of "N. & Q." the trouble of publishing the query.

A better knowledge of county topography is very desirable. Not long before Lord Palmerston's death the Daily News placed Brocket Hall in Derbyshire. The Morning Star, not long before its death, fixed Gorhambury in Surrey; another London paper put Hatfield House in Hampshire, and a Suffolk paper allotted St. Neot's to the same county a few weeks ago. An entire village was also recently removed from Herts to another county by a London daily paper. W. POLLARD. Old Cross, Hertford.

P.S. There are Holwells (or Holywells) in different counties-one in Leicestershire near Melton.

It has a chalybeate spring-the old Holy-well. Dick Christian speaks of it in Silk and Scarlet, P: 14. The old rusty bowl chained to the wellside, of which he speaks, was there in my schoolboy days. (He lived at Melton, and we were neighbours and friends.) There is Holywell Hill at St. Alban's, and the well is there close to where the Duchess of Marlborough's great house

I can supply one other example of the use of this expression. It is from Manilius (lib. i. extr.)

"Atque adamanteis discordia vincta catenis." F. C. H. "I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever Its adamantine links." Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, iii. 19. T. MCGRATH. In a poem called "Belvoir," printed in the Harleian Miscellany, iv. 559—

"And adamantine chains in pieces shook." And in Canning's Poems, p. 18 (ed. 1767)— "And locks each sense in adamantine chains. WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT.

Trin. Coll. Cambridge. The following are from Crashaw's translation of Marini's Sospetto d'Herode. In stanza 14 he says of Atlas,

"His adamantine fetters fall." And again in stanza 18,—

"Of sturdy adamant is his strong chain."

B. N.

"NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE" (4th S. v. passim.)-This familiar line occurs in the epitaph of Mary Angel, widow, died 1693, in St. Dunstan's, Stepney:

"To say an angel here interred doth lye,
May be thought strange, for angels never dye;
Indeed some fell from heaven to hell,
Are lost, and rise no more;
This only fell by death to earth,
Not lost, but gone before."

MACKENZIE E. WALCOT, B.D.

GARROONS OR GARRONS (4th S. vii. 494.)-This word is derived from the Gaelic gearran (Ir. id.), a little farm-horse, a work-horse, a hack; perhaps from gear, short, short in size.

Gray's Inn.

R. S. CHARNOCK,

CALVIN AND SERVETUS (4th S. vii. 141.)-I suppose it is in that most partial and Jesuitical

work, Audin's Histoire de la Vie, des Ouvrages, et des Doctrines de Calvin, and nowhere else, that F. has found his "authority for the statement that Calvin was personally present at the burning of Servetus"; in fact he says, p. 441, in an offhand way, but not sans penser à mal: "et Calvin fermait la fenêtre où il était venu s'asseoir pour assister à la suprême agonie de son ennemi." Now I defy anyone to show true and reliable proof of this odious Audinus calumny. He himself says, two pages previous: "Servet garda le silence " (on being asked to retract), "Calvin crut que son rôle était fini, et il prit congé du malheureux sans l'embrasser." Had he kissed him, good and worthy M. Audin would not have failed to exclaim: "C'est le baiser de Judas!"

Servetus's death, we must go back, in thought, To judge fairly the painful circumstances of to the period at which it took place. Even gentle, pious Melanchthon, who through life acted up to his master Johann Unger's favourite precept, "Cave ac cede," wrote to Calvin: "I declare that your magistrates have acted justly in putting to death such a blasphemer, after a regular and lawful trial." Even Bolsec, the bitterest enemy of Calvin, wrote on the same occasion

"Je n'écris pas ces choses pour le plaisir que j'ai de la mort d'un si ord et monstrueux hérétique que fut Servet, je désirerais que tous ses semblables fussent exterminés " and one hundred years later, in 1667, Drelincourt, in his defence of Calvin says:

"On lui reproche la mort et le supplice de Michel Servet l'Espagnol de maudite mémoire; mais c'est avec beaucoup d'injustice. A cet égard il n'y a pas le mot à dire contre Calvin."

P. A. L.

SIR RALPH BIGLAND (4th S. vii. 473.) — Sir Ralph was of the ancient family of Bigland of Bigland Hall, near Cartmel, Grange, Lancashire, where the representative of the family, John Bigland, Esq., now resides. This family was allied in early times to the first houses in the north. There is a portrait in oil of Sir Ralph at the Hall. A print of him was published in 1803 by J. Debrett, Piccadilly, a copy of which I have. H. BARBER, M.D.

LENGTH OF HAIR IN MEN AND WOMEN (4th S. vii. 475.) — I once saw a Chinese running by the side of a European's gig and whipping the horse with his pigtail, which was wonderfully long; but I found afterwards that three or four yards of braid had been interwoven with the hair. I have examined the hair of a great many Chinese, and I never saw any above a yard long; but almost all of their pigtails are lengthened out by braid of one kind or another, which serves for many purposes of utility, and even of ornament for the head. Their hair is thin and coarse; but the coarsest of all hair that has come under my ob

servation is that of the Japanese. The variety of hair is a curious problem, and it is hard to believe that tropical heat alone should occasion wool in one region and long coarse hair in another. Where the cause is similar, the effect should be so too; where the cause is removed, the effect should cease; but to neither the Negro nor the Chinese hair does this apply. G. E.

In an old number of the Literary Gazette, dated Aug. 12, 1826, I find the following account of a remarkable growth of hair, which may be interesting to G. E., although the hair referred to was not quite so long as that of the young lady mentioned by him :

:

SELDEN'S BALLADS (4th S. vii. 496.)-The collection of ballads made by Selden was the nucleus of that in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT. TWENTY POINTS OF PIETY (4th S. vii. 510.)There is, I apprehend, no doubt that the verses pubHished by MR. RATCLIFFE as the work of "Thomas Leisser, a good man," are really by Thomas Tusser, the author of Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. The only edition I have at hand is Dr. Mavor's modernized one. There they occur as Tusser's at p. 293.

Bottesford Manor, Brigg.

*

EDWARD PEACOCK.

CUL, COUL (4th S. vii. 495.)-These prefixes may be from the Gaelic cul, the back of anything; cùil, a corner, nook, angle; cil, a cemetery, cell, chapel, grave; coille, a wood, grove, forest; caol, small, thin, narrow; caol, a frith, strait, narrow part of a river; or from col for Celtic ol water; or Latin collis, a hill. Culter, co. Lanark, is said to be from cul-tir, "the back part or recess of the land"; Culross is probably from cùl and ros, a promontory, an isthmus. The name Cults, in Fife (anc. Quilts or Quilques), may be derived from cùil, a nook or corner. These three names are said to be descriptive sites. Again, Culvennan is the name of a hill, co. Wigton; Culblean of a range of hills, co. Aberdeen; and there are the

* Peterculter, co. Aberdeen, would seem to be prefixed with the name of the saint; although some latinize the name Petri Cultura. Conf. Stat. Ac. Scot.

Culalo hills, co. Fife. These names may be from collis. Culfreich is the name of a large loch, co. Sutherland; Culernie of a spring, co. Inverness; and there is the parish of Cullen (originally Invercullen), co. Banff. There is also Cultoquhey, co. Perth

"remarkable for a great number of mounds of gravel, which appear as if they had been formed by the course of a river, probably the Shaggy; said to have run formerly in this direction."

"The Celtic name [of Cullicudden, co. Ross] is Coull a Chuddinn or Chudegin, signifying the Cuddie Creek, that species of fish being formerly, though not now, caught in great abundance in a small creek on the shore of Čullicudden, and a little to the west of the old church."-Stat. Ac. Scot.

"DE

THE "OFFICIUM DEFUNCTORUM" AND PROFUNDIS" (4th S. vii. 495.)-As a "Catholic" reader of "N. & Q." I should like to assist SALISBURIENSIS in one branch of his inquiry. The 130th (129th) Psalm, De Profundis, has doubtless been used in connection with the obsequies of the departed for many centuries. Psalmody is stated to have been used at Christian funerals as early as the time of St. Jerome, A.D. 404. The De Profundis in English was used on behalf of the departed as early as the year 1410, and it is probable earlier. See the remarkable "Prymer in English," printed in his Mon. Ritu. Ecclesiæ Anglicana (ii.), by the Rev. W. Maskell, from a MS. which he supposes (p. xxxiii.) to be "not later than the year 1410."

The De Profundis occurs there three times: first in The Compline of Our Lady, where it is headed "For alle cristen soulis"; next in The Seuene salmes, "contra invidiam," as is noted from Sar. Brev.; and lastly in the Placebo, with which "The Office of the Dead" commences.

Yaxley Vicarage, Suffolk.

W. H. SEWELL, M.A.

The Officium Defunctorum was not all at once used in its present form, nor composed by the same person. But, although its institution and authorship in its present form are not known, the custom of praying for the dead is primitive and apostolical. Some have attributed the office to Origen, others to Amalarius, others to St. Ambrose, St. Augustin, and James of Valentia. The responses were composed by Maurice, Bishop of Paris, who died in 1196. The prayers, Deus qui inter Apostolicos and Fidelium Deus, are found in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great. Pope St. Pius V. added the three prayers on the day of decease, or burial, on the anniversary, and for the parents of

KALENDIS (4th S. vii. 495.)—This word, in the passages quoted by your correspondent F. D. M., seems to mean simply the beginning. The following extracts from Du Fresne's Glossarium, last edition, can, I conceive, leave little doubt on the point:

"KALENDA, Initium cujusvis rei, puta locus ubi territorium aliquod incipit. Charta Andr. reg. Hungar. ann. 1214, inter Probat. tom. 2, Annal Præmonstr. col. 19: Cujus prædii prima meta incipiunt a Kalenda Vidze Veniunt iterum ad primas metas in loco superius nominato Kalendaviz (sic) nominata.

"KALENDE. Anni initium, vel primus dies: ita, ni fallor, accipienda hæc vox, quæ crebro occurrit in Tabu

lario Conchensi in Ruthensis, charta 44: Et donat de censum 9, denarios Pogesos et ad Calendas duos membros

etc.

... et ad messiones unum medium molton escorgatum,

Chartul. Camalariense: In Vareniaco est unus mansus alodi, et debet in Maio multonem et agnum, et in Kalendis 1 sextarium segel."

A. O. V. P.

PARISH REGISTERS OF BARBADOS (4th S. vii. 387, 496.)-I beg, in reply to T., to say that both the names, Cutts and Vaughan, occur in these the West Indies there is an epitaph of a Vaughan, registers; and in my Monumental Inscriptions of who died in the seventeenth century.

Barbadian registers throw a considerable light on the "extinct baronetage" as well as the extant. "Act 5" of the legislature of Barbados established registers of "warrants for lands," "patents, deeds of sale, leases, mortgages," &c. Amongst these records would, doubtless, be found many invaluable materials for genealogists; but there are so many serious obstacles in the pursuit of such knowledge at present, that I can scarcely hope to see a local colonial continuation of the Calendar of State Papers.

But, to return to the immediate subject of this note, I may mention an act of the legislature of

Barbadoes with reference to "James Vaughan, Esq." passed in 1715; and in the same year another relating to the Right Hon. Katherine Viscountess Lonsdale; James Lowther of Whitehaven, in the county of Cumberland, Esq.; Robert Carleton of Carleton, in the same county; John Frere; Robert Lowther of Meaburn, co. Westmoreland, &c. A.

THE PASSING BELL (4th S. vii. 388, 499.)-The different uses explained under the above heading are remarkable, but belong surely rather to the customs connected with the death bell. Is MR. MORRIS aware whether, among the churchmen of Cheshire, the ancient custom has survived of tolling the bell for the passing soul (according to the canon) in articulo mortis? I should not be surprised if this were the case. T. R.

An old English homily for Trinity Sunday, quoted by Strutt, has this passage:

-

"The fourme of the Trinity was founden in manne, that was Adam our forefadir, of earth oon personne, & Eve of Adam the secunde persone; & of them both was the third persone. At the death of a manne three bellis shulde be ronge, as his knyll, in worscheppe of the Trinetee; & for a womanne, who was the secunde person of the Trinetee, two bellis should be rungen."

Durandus, in his Rationale, has:

"When any one is dying, bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers; twice for a woman, and thrice for a man; if for a clergyman, as many times as he had orders; and at the conclusion a peal of all the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers."

The Rev. W. L. Blackley, in his Word Gossip, points out that "to toll a bell" is an inaccurate way of saying "to tell a knell on a bell." In some places still, when the knell has been rung, some strokes are sounded apart to indicate the sex and age of the deceased: three for a child, six for a woman, and nine for a man. Mr. Blackley says these strokes were counted, and thus the knell was said to be told or counted: :

"By degrees this idea became confused or lost, and the participle told was referred to a supposed infinitive to toll, word toll. The author of Word Gossip thinks the instead of its natural infinitive to tell or count." Dr. Johnson did not know the etymology of the proverb, "Nine tailors make a man," is really "Nine tellers make a man"-alluding to the nine strokes on the bell when a man's knell is rung. He quotes an amusing anecdote of J. P. Curran, who, having been entertained by the guild of tailors, said at leaving the eighteen persons present: "Gentlemen, I am indebted to you for some most delightful hours, the enjoyment and honour of which shall never fade from my recollection. Gentlemen, I wish you both a very good evening."

JOHN PIGGOT, JUN.

LANCASHIRE WITCHES (4th S. vii. 237, 311, 417, 504.)-In Kidd's Shilling Treatise on the