Whereon the whole town sank and became a lake, except of course the cottage. He told me that many persons have assured him, most solemnly, they have gone on the lake of an evening in a boat, and could distinctly see the roofs and chimneys of the houses. Traditions of submerged towns are common abroad, but I never before heard of such a thing in England. Can any of your readers inform me whether they have heard of such a legend? And also, what lake is alluded to by Simmerwater? A. A. The superstition which accords peculiar virtues to the Good Friday's baking is not confined to Warwickshire. Mr. Walter White tells us that had our grandmother been born in Cleveland, she would have been able to inform us that, "Biscuits baked on Good Friday would keep good all the year, and a person ill with flux had only to swallow one grated in milk or brandy and water, and recovery was certain. Clothes hung out on Good Friday would, when taken in, be found spotted with blood."—Month in Yorkshire, p. 122. DR. CONEY. ST. SWITHIN. The following curious letter from Dr. Coney, formerly parson of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater (a known poet, and a great writer of lampoons and political squibs), is transcribed from the original MS.: "Dear Sir. Having this opportunity of sending to you by Mr. Mayor [William Salmon, Mayor of Wells], I was willing to let you know that I am in the land of the living, and hope to see Somersetshire in a little more than a fortnight's time. We have had abundance of Politicks and Lampoons in Town, and great Struggles in Convocation, which I shall give you a secret History of when I come to Chedzoy. I know that it is very unsafe to trust any of these things to the Post, because letters are so frequently open'd, and persons are brought into trouble for an Innocent Jest; but I hope a man may send scandall by a Tory Magistrate without the danger "THE LOYAL HEALTH. "For banisht James prepare the bowl, And frisking Dolphins round it play: With all your grateful Airs appear: Ye Peers forsake the Ideot's Court, Let Cowards wish and Statesmen think; Our present business is to drink. And western back as good ones carry." These lines fell into the wrong hands, and were printed soon after they were written, with divers comments on them; one of which precedes the he had in his mind the title, and more than one A GUESS AT THE NAME OF THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED "THE CLOWN" IN "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL."-There is of course great propriety in making the once swaggering but now crestfallen Parolles address the fool of the house as"Good Monsieur Lavatch;" but why does Shak speare give to this latter personage, who is an original creation of his own, the name of Lavatch? The word as it stands was conjectured to be a corruption, and Jackson acutely pointed out that it was a misprint for Lavache. But, again, why Lavache? Perdita, Ariel, Miranda, and many others are all significant, and so is Parolles, and so Lafeu; i. e. le feu, the man of a by-gone generation; and in La Vache, I suspect that Shakspeare made a punning allusion to the name of the actor who played the part, i. e. to Richard Cowley or John Lowine (lowing). This would be a kind of joke that would be well received by those of the audience who understood the meaning of the name Parolles; and if this were so, it would give additional point to the same clown's answer, ["I may be of the cow kind, but] I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, Sir." Again, if it were Lowine, there would be a palpable hit in the rest of the sentence, "I have not much skill in grace (grass); I am no ascetic vegetarian, no mortifier of the flesh,"-for as he seems to have played Falstaff, Henry VIII., and Hamlet, "fat and scant of breath," he was probably (like the clown in Twelfth Night) a stout man. I think, too, that there is an allusion to Lowine's name rather than to Cowley's from the peculiar wording of a sentence, which I need not quote, as to the results of the fool's visit to court. The epithet "old" is somewhat, but not altogether against this conjecBENJ. EASY. ture. SHAKSPEARE'S SHYLOCK UN-SHYLOCKED.-In a recent number of the Jewish Record, a journal devoted to the interests of American Israelites, and published at New York, we find a new version of the Merchant of Venice. The writer, who is himself a Jew, says, the play is founded in fact, with this important difference - that it was the Jew who was to forfeit the pound of flesh, if he lost the wager! The circumstance took place not at Venice, but in Rome, during the pontificate of Sixtus V.; the Jew lost; the noble demanded the pound of flesh; the Jew demurred, and offered money which was refused. Sixtus, to whom the matter was at last submitted, decided in favour of the noble, with the provision that he should cut exactly one pound of flesh, not one grain more or less, on pain of being hanged. The noble naturally declined the risk, and the Pope fined both parties in heavy sums for making such a wager. Niebuhr, in his second lecture on Roman History, p. 20, of Schmitz's second 8vo edition, says: "The story of a Jew taking merciless vengeance on a Christian, such as we read in the Merchant of Venice, is before Shakespeare's time; in this the Christian is reprefound completely reversed in a Roman tale written shortly sented as wishing to cut a piece of flesh out of the Jew's body." Do the writer in the Jewish Record and Niebuhr allude to one and the same tale? I am inclined to think they do, as the former's "pontificate of Sixtus V."-1585 to 1590-seems to correspond sufficiently with the latter's "shortly before Shak speare's time." It is possible that the Merchant of Venice may Shakspeare reversed the relative positions of the have been founded on the same tale, but that Jew and Christian for dramatic effect, and as being more consonant to the feelings or prejudices of the people for whose amusement and instruction he wrote; and if such can be shown to have been the case, the opinion that his play was founded on the old novel in Ser. Giovanni Fiorentino's FLORAL CROWNS (3rd S. iii. 42.) — May I venture to offer to MR. KEIGHTLEY one more conjecture as to the meaning of the passage quoted from The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. 1: "Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims, &c." The simplest interpretation is often the best. Piony is still the rural name of a well-known large crimson flower, native to the banks of the Severn, &c., called by the educated classes pæony (pæonia). Twilled is rendered in some modern editions of Shakespeare lilied. Here we have at crimson pionies and lilies; and very handsome once cold crowns for chaste nymphs, composed of been Daffodils or Flags (otherwise known as the crowns too, whether we suppose the lilies to have cissus, also found on the banks of some rivers in Yellow Iris) or, prettier still, the White Narthe south of England, all these being liliaceous plants. M. F. THE COSMOGONY OF JOANNES ZONARAS. THEORY OF THE FIRMAMENT. On recent archiepiscopal authority, Biblical critics have been told that a schoolboy of ordinary capacity may solve the difficulties which the account of the creation of the world in Genesis apparently presents. I read my Bible (and millions, I hope, do the same) with the wish, not gratuitously to make, or to aggravate difficulties, but to smooth them away when they start up. There is a sensation of infinite relief to an honest student, when some seeming impossibility in inspired statement becomes reconcilable with what we term human reason and knowledge. But I confess that, both as a schoolboy and as an adult, I have pondered with despairing perplexity over Genesis i. 6, 7, and 8: Now, the general impression among modern Christians-orthodox and heterodox-is, that this our orb moves in the midst of infinite space: in an ethereal expanse, to which there is no beginning and no end; which is, in fact, infinity and eternity and the why and how of which, must necessarily remain to us, while denizens of this world, utterly incomprehensible and inscrutable. When we look up at the sky, it is into absolute Immensity, to which there can be no wall, no barrier of separation, and no tangible terminal goal; and our very inability to understand the why and the how, or to realise the idea of an interminable vista, is a proof of the miserable meagreness of our knowledge, and of the humiliating fallibility of our reason. Still there is the plain, literal, inspired statement in Genesis : : "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so." My object in addressing you this communication, is to inquire whether it has ever occurred to any modern theologian or natural philosopher to moot the theory-that our world, and the planets and constellations visible to us, are all roofed in by a solid dome of ice, distant from us God only knows how many billions of billion miles; and that beyond this dome, or firmament, are the waters, separated at the time of the creation from those on the surface of the earth. Such a "glacial hypothesis" was stated, not very ambiguously, by the Byzantine historian Joannes Zonoras or Zonaras, who flourished during the reigns of Alexis Comnenus and Caloian, or John the Handsome, his son-A.D. "mille ans octate trois, et mille cent et seize,"from 1083 to 1116. Zonaras is said to have been a priest, and yet a soldier. He is frequently spoken of as "the Monk Zonaras;" but he was also "Grand Drogaire de Bigle ou de Guet," to the Emperor Alexis- a dignity which has sorely puzzled his translators. M. de Maumont, in the folio edition of 1596 in my possession, rendering "Drogaire de Bigle" as "Capitaine des Gendarmes de l'Empereur." Zonaras appears likewise to have officiated as Secretary of State; being called, in barbarous Græco-Latin, Protoasecretis, or, as De Maumont gives it more elegantly, pwTOKρiTns; and certainly enjoyed some high employment in the Imperial chancery. His great work is a folio of 800 pages, bearing the title "Les Histoires Chroniques du Monde, Descriuant toutes Histoires memorables aduenues depuis la naissance du monde, jusqu'au transportement et exil Babyloniques, Traduit et mis de nouveau de leurs naïfves langues en vulgaire François par Jean de Maumont. Paris, 1596.” The book is sumptuously printed on large paper, and dedicated to Catherine de Medicis. In his account of the creative week, Zonaras follows with commendable orthodoxy the Mosaic narrative; but concerning the firmament, he makes the curious remark here transcribed: "Achevé que fut par le grand ouvrier, l'ouvrage susdit, il establit le firmament, qui fut une étendue courbe et voutée, qu'il entreieta parmy les eaus, qui courroyent et occupoyent toute la terre: et par cest entredeux les sépara si bien que les unes furent flottantes par dessus et les autres resterent afaissies au dessoubs, s'épandans ça et là, et escoulans sans bornes parmy toutes places où est l'habitation du monde. Et quat à ceste estendue enclinée et penchante, elle fut appelé Firmament, pourautant que le corps d'icelle est massif, solide, et ferme, et non d'essence mince, rare, et deliée comme celle des eaus, nommée ciel." dont, toutefois il prend origine et substance. Et si fut encore draw attention to the fact that Zonaras insists that I have put the penultimate passage in italic, to the solid firmament-an "inclined and sloping expanse," "a curved and vaulted area"-still derived "both origin and substance" from the "thin, rare, and scattered or attenuated waters," which it was designed to divide. The only inference to be drawn from this is, that Zonaras wished it to be understood that the firmament was only so much divinely solidified water, - in other words, a boundary wall of ICE. That he should not have mentioned the gelid substance itself with more precision, might have been due to his never having seen the actual thing, ice, at all. He was a Greek of the Lower Empire when the climate of Constantinople was much warmer than it is now; and his ocular acquaintance with frigid substance did not probably extend beyond the snow brought from the Balkans to cool his winepitchers withal. He may have bad, nevertheless, a vague notion of water hardened into a solid mass, and this may have prompted him to the solution of his difficulties concerning the firmament. Nor can I see anything very inimical, at least to conception, in the theory of a glacial firmament. Everybody who has been up in a balloon knows that it grows colder and colder as you ascend; and there cannot, I apprehend, be an effect with out a cause although, to make the hypothesis any way tenable, the sun should be so equi-distant from the two bodies; as not to melt the "glacial firmament" on the one hand, or to set the earth ACROSTICS ON THE DEATH OF LORD HATHERTON, MAY 4, 1863. Hard was his final fight with ghastly Death, Lichfield. ag 0, Hatherton, He bravely yielded his expiring breath. Minar Notes. LAWRIE'S" HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY," 1804. In the sale of the Library of the late Dr. David Irving, Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, there was a copy of this work, which sold for 11. on Saturday, March 28, 1862. In this copy there was a very singular and curious notice in the handwriting of Dr. Irving relative to its authorship. As this is one of those literary curiosities which is worthy of being recorded in "N. & Q.," I subjoin a copy of it for preservation. Dr. Irving remarks that: "The history of this book is somewhat curious, and perhaps there are only two individuals now living by whom it could be divulged. The late Alexander Lawrie, 'Grand Stationer,' wished to recommend himself to the fraternity by the publication of such a work. Through Dr. Anderson, he requested me to undertake its compilation, and offered a suitable remuneration. As I did not relish the task, he made a similar offer to my old acquaintance David Brewster, by whom it was readily undertaken, and I can say was executed to the entire satisfaction of his employers. The title-page does not exhibit the name of the author, but the dedication bears the signature of Alexander Lawrie, and the volume commonly described as Lawrie's History of Freemasonry.' Alexander Lawrie, originally bred a stockingweaver, became a bookseller and stationer in the Parliament Square, Edinburgh, and thereafter printer of the Edinburgh Gazette, the patent for which had been granted by the Government of the day to Dugald Stewart, the celebrated Professor of Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh. Dr. Anderson was the author of the Life of Smollett, "Among this class of births [illegitimate] there was one case during the year worthy of especial notice, in consequence of the extreme youth of the mother. Elizabeth D. at Taunton, May 24, 1847; and at the same place she was born of native parents in the almshouse became the mother of a healthy boy, on the 1st February, 1858, being only ten years, eight months, and seven days old. This appears to be a rare case in this climate; but is well attested by the physician (Dr. A. Baylis) of the almshouse at Taunton, who officiated professionally both at the birth of the young mother and at that of her 'hopeful son.' This boy weighed eight pounds at birth; and at the age of eighteen months it weighed 37 pounds, and was in the enjoyment of robust health." Census Office. JAMES T. HAMMICK. RUMINATION OF THE HARE.— Dr. Copland, in his Dictionary of Medicine, defines rumination as : "The regurgitation of food which had passed into the stomach, and which is remasticated and again swallowed." A priori, therefore, one would be led to infer that any animal, whether a so-called ruminant or not, whose stomach was capable of rejecting its contents, might ruminate. And, strange to say, this à priori inference is found to be confirmed where one would least seek for its confirmation-I mean in man. Dr. Copland, in his article upon "Human Rumination," records several more or less well-authenticated cases; and he states that he himself has attended three persons who suffered from the affection, and that he has "reason to believe that instances of partial human subject as is generally supposed." In his own cases, of which he gives a detailed account, it appears that the rumination was "partially under the control of the will." And I myself once knew a schoolboy who enjoyed the faculty of rejecting his meals at pleasure; and who used frequently to perform the feat, sometimes for the gratification of his comrades, and sometimes for the sake of extorting from an unwilling master the permission to leave the school-room. or occasional rumination are not so rare in the But if the human subject, which has not the stomach of a ruminant, does occasionally ruminate, why may not the hare, though not a ruminant, more frequently perform this operation; particularly as it is not omnivorous, but feeds upon much the same food as those animals which are acknowledged to ruminate ? Whether, however, the hare actually does, or does not ruminate, cannot be determined otherwise than by observation. Dissection is here of no avail, for Dr. Copland expressly states that nothing peculiar in the conformation of the stomach was found, in the case of the human beings who were afflicted with rumination. "BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER." F. C. ". . . . and Commodore Tatnall, so well known to us in England for his gallant conduct in the Peiho affair, when he offered and gave our vessels aid, though a neutral, and uttered the exclamation in doing so-in his despatch at all events, that blood was thicker than water."" The above is in the penultimate paragraph of the 20th chapter of My Diary North and South, by Dr. Russell, the well-known correspondent of The Times; and I have found other good writers speak as if the exclamation originated with the gallant American Commodore. Without at all detracting from his merit, however, I think he is only entitled to the credit of having made a proper application of an old English proverb. In Ray's Collection of English Proverbs, first published in 1672, as republished by Bohn in 1855 (on p. 231, and again on p. 332), the proverb is recorded as it was used by the Commodore: "Blood's thicker than water." While, to the lines in the Introduction to the sixth canto of Marmion (8vo, 5th edit. p. 304),— "For course of blood our proverbs deem, START.-I find no satisfactory account of the origin and uses of this word. Perhaps what follows may elucidate them. There was formerly in the English, and of course in the Anglo-Saxon language, a word start-answering to the Dutch staart, German stert, sterz; and, like them, signifying tail, of which the only remnant is in the compound red-start - the name of a bird with a red tail. From this noun was derived a verb, to fall back suddenly; agreeing exactly in sense and start, still in general use, signifying to recoil or derivation with the French reculer, whence recoil. This verb, then, like so many others, was used in a causal sense, as in "every feather starts you" (All's Well, &c., Act V. Sc. 3),— at present under the form startle. Retaining the idea of suddenness, it next came to denote onward motion, as when we speak of starting a hare, horses at a race, &c. We have also a noun from it in this causal talk of the start on the race-course. Wood-work sense, as in "You gave me such a start;” and we is said to start when it forces itself out of its right place; and sacks of corn, &c., are started when they are emptied by elevating their lower end, either from the original sense of start or from its causal sense. It is possible that stern (pronounced by sailors starn) may be connected with start. It is used of ships and of dogs. The corresponding word tail seems to be peculiar to the English language. Bosworth gives the Anglo-Saxon tegl. This, however, is one of the words for which his only authority seems to be the dictionaries of Somner and Lye; and I really cannot avoid having sometimes a suspicion that these lexicographers, being convinced that those words which could not be traced to a Latin, French, or other source, must have come from the Anglo-Saxon, gave them their proper form in that language; and they may have been right enough. I cannot think they (especially Lye, who wrote so late,) could have had access to any MSS. not now in being; and I wish that Mr. Thorpe, or some other competent person, would inform us if tagl, and such words, are to be found anywhere else than in the dictionaries of Somner and Lye? THOS. KEIGHTley. JOSEPH SPARKE, the Peterborough antiquary, is stated (Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, i. 257) to have died July 20, 1748, æt. fifty-seven. An inspection of his monument, in the retro-choir or Lady Chapel of Peterborough Minster, satisfies us that the real year of his death was 1740 (and this accords with the statement in Nichols's Literary |