"Marode" is evidently a misreading for "Mawde;" but whether Miss Strickland be correct in interpreting "Jugg" as Judith, I am not satisfied. The line

"Give to the Norman Hunter "

means, "I William the King give to thee, Norman Hunter, who art so lieve and dear," &c.; and so in the first line also," the means thee.

There is a place named Hope Baggot, not many miles from Hopton-in-the-Hole, otherwise called Hopton Cangeford, in Shropshire. Whether these were the places intended by the rhymes I cannot determine, nor do I know whether Mr. Eyton has condescended to notice this apocryphal charter in his History of Shropshire. Ι with ANGLO-SCOTUS that Hope and Hopton have been engrafted on the verses, which originally belonged to Ettrick Dale and the banks of Yarrow. J. G. N.

agree

JUNIUS AND DR. JOHNSON (3rd S. xi. 444.)-I quite agree with your correspondent that the sooner Sir Philip Francis is acknowledged, by general consent, to have been an "unmitigated (qu. impostor) the better for the credit of political investigation and literary criticism in this country. But how the discussion, with merited contempt, of the hypothesis first broached some fifty years after Junius had ceased to write, and favoured, we are told, by the silly octogenarian, can tend to accelerate the appearance of Junius in propria persona is beyond all reasonable apprehension.

In Croker's Boswell (p. 122, 1 vol. edition, 1859) it is stated on the authority of Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, that "he (Johnson) delighted his imagination with the thought of having destroyed Junius."

Is there any other evidence to support the notion that the "mighty boar of the forest" was terrified into silence by the Johnsonian thunder in the False Alarm? or can you specify any commentator of Junius who has attributed to the pamphlet the cessation of the Letters? Mr. Prior, I am aware,

considers that his hypothesis of the disputed authorship is in some degree fortified by the probable unwillingness of Burke to retort upon Johnson-namely, on the score of friendship; but that I suppose gives no colour to the assertion, that the anonymous writer felt himself to have been destroyed-in other words, worsted in the encounter of sarcasm and invective

"Snuffed out by an article," which certainly was not the case.

We

The inquiry was surely a very narrow one to the contemporaries of Junius. Who had been specially aggrieved by the ministers principally assailed? and, in that class, what individual could have been singled among the number by the mark of intellectual competency? There were not "six Richmonds in the field." might as well believe that any contemporary of Shakespeare ("whose magic could not copied be ") could have written Macbeth, as that several opponents of the Grafton administration could have wielded the pen of "Junius." Besides, the mere discord of opinion, the "non idem sentire de Republicâ," could scarcely, in the political warfare of those times, have instigated the use of such envenomed weapons. The bitterness of personal hatred, the sense of intolerable wrong, are conspicuous throughout.

"The satire point, and animate the page."

Bishop Markham, an early friend and patron of Burke (resentful, no doubt, of the aggravated calumnies on his firm patron, the Duke of Grafton), taxed him, almost in direct terms, with the authorship of "Junius"-telling him that his house was a "nest of adders."

It is remarkable that the long and elaborate reply (fifty pages) was never communicated to the right reverend accuser, and that we find no positive denial on the part of Burke of the imputed slanders. Yet the piece is finished with all the force of his genius; indeed, it may be said that no other essay of his pen exhibits in a more unqualified degree, the astonishing power of the writer. For the suppression of this letter, the only assignable reason, in my judgment, is that it lacked the "one thing needful," the disavowal of any share in the production of the "Letters."

On a reperusal of them (having given many days and nights in the interval, to the pages of Burke) I am struck with coincidences of thought, diction, and even cadence, such as seem to conduct to only one conclusion, namely, that Johnson narrowed the question with his usual force of discrimination, when he remarked that he "knew of no other man than Burke capable of writing those letters." Burke admitted to Sir Joshua Reynolds that he knew the author,* thereby con[* What evidence is there of this ?-ED. "N. & Q."]

INSCRIPTIONS ON ANGELUS BELLS (3rd S. xi. 410, 531.)

quod quath. "In God is all, quoth Gabriel." See St. Luke, i. 37. J. T. F. CHURCHES WITH THATCHED ROOFS (3rd S. xi. 517.)-Your correspondent states that the roof of the church of Little Melton, Norfolk, is thatched, and asks if it is unique. This kind of roofing is by no means uncommon, and prevails in Norfolk, Suffolk, and in a few churches in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. The following are examples: Norfolk, S. Margaret, Paston; S. Peter, Ridlington; S. Nicholas, Swafield; S. Ethelred, Norwich; S. Michael, Ormesby, and Belton. Suffolk, S. Andrew, Garleston; Pakefield; Gisleham, and Kirtley. Lincolnshire, S. Margaret, Somersby, near Horncastle.

JOHN PIGGOT, JUN.

Thatched churches are by no means uncommon in Norfolk, although I know of none covered in like way in any other county. In the next parish to Little Melton, Marlingford, the church roof is thatched. I could give a dozen instances of thatched churches, if I had the good fortune to be in that county just now, but I do not like to speak at hap-hazard. The chancel of Horning church is, I know, thatched. The custom of thatching has doubtless arisen from the ease with which reeds are procured in the great marshes which even now form so marked a feature in the county. The beams supporting the chancel roof at Little Melton are arranged like those of a common barn, but those of the nave are placed together in a way which is very effective in an architectural point of view. Instead of being shaped like the letter A, they are arranged in a figure somewhat like that of the " pons asinorum" in Euclid. There are faint traces of painting, too, on some of the beams in the nave at Little Melton. C. W. BARKLEY.

The old church of Rigsby, near Alford, Lincolnshire, which was rebuilt in 1863, afforded an example of the above-named roof; and I believe that CUTHBERT BEDE would find one still existing at Markby in the same neighbourhood. J. T. M. Common "in Norfolk and Suffolk, and the northern parts of Cambridgeshire."-Handbook of English Ecclesiology, 1847. The choir of Sher

borne was once thatched. (Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1865, p. 337.) I think I have heard of two or three thatched churches in Lincolnshire, but they may have been "restored." J. T. F.

IRON HAND (3rd S. xi. 496.)—It is stated in Scott's Border Antiquities of England and Scotland, vol. ii. p. 206, that the family of Clephane of Carslogie

have been in possession, time immemorial, of a hand made in the exact imitation of that of a man, curiously formed of steel. This is said to have been conferred by one of the kings of Scotland, along with other more valuable marks of his favour, on the laird of Carslogie, who had lost his hand in the service of his country."

An engraving of this interesting relic is given.
EDWARD PEACOCK.

The iron hand of the valorous Götz von Berlichingen, of the sixteenth century, immortalized by Goethe, is preserved at Jaxthausen, near Heilbronn. A duplicate is in the celebrated Schloss at Erbach in the Odenwald, famous for its antique armour. This extraordinary character died 1562 at Hornberg Castle, near Mosbach, some short distance from Heidelberg, now the property of the Gemmingen family, who are Freiherrn or Barons; and here, with a collection of family portraits, late medieval weapons, &c., is the complete suit of armour of Götz von Berlichingen at the farm house, "die volstandige Rüstung Götzens." This castle is in the village of Neckarzimmern. Here he married, in 1518, Dorothea Gailing, and wrote his own life. The castle, it may be interesting to know, was a fief of Spire, and Götz became possessed of it by purchase after the raübritter (robber knight), Kuntz of Schottestein, was beheaded by the Schwabian Bund or Confederacy, being the previous proprietor. The MSS. of Götz are preserved among the archives of the town of Heilbronn. COURTOIS.

"To SLAIT" (3rd S. xi. 520.)- A short time since, being out rabbiting with my keeper, on crossing a field we found several wires set, when my man remarked, "I know whose these are; he allows to slait this piece for himself." And I found he meant that the poacher named considered that ground his own, and would look on any other poacher as a trespasser. This meaning seems to differ from that given ut supra.

E. V.

JEFWELLIS (3rd S. xi. 355.) — This word is evidently a corruption of diabhol (the d pronounced in the original likej, and bh exactly like v), which is the Gaelic name for devil. The statement of Lord Argyle's men, as quoted by your correspondent, when they speak of "the malice and device of those jefwellis," just means the malice and device of those devils. The Scotch etymologists to whom your correspondent refers-Jamieson and Laing-were but little acquainted with the Celtic

language, from whence a great many words were imported into the ancient dialect of the Lowland Scots; words which are still in common use, and which, in some cases, are supposed to be derived from the French, though they may be traced to a nearer and more natural source. This also explains the meaning attached to javel or jevel by Way, Nares, and Bishop Kennet, and gives considerably more significance to the lines quoted from Christ's Kirk

"Lat be, quoth Jock, and call'd him jevel,
And by the tail him tugged."

Aberdeen.

W. M. S.

"MORNING'S PRIDE" (3rd S. xi. 457, 529.)This rusticism (to coin a word which, I venture think, is needed) has been made classical by Keble's introduction of it into The Christian Year. The third stanza of the poem for the twentyfifth Sunday after Trinity runs :

"Pride of the dewy morning!

The swain's experienced eye

From thee takes timely warning,
Nor trusts the gorgeous sky.

For well he knows, such dawnings gay
Bring noons of storm and shower,
And travellers linger on the way
Beside the sheltering bower."

Keble's lines tally with what MR. J. M. CowPER has heard said in Kent. On the other hand, MR. JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN (at Hampstead), MR. H. FISHWICK (in Lancashire), and A. H. (mentioning no county or place in particular), have found the expression used of a morning mist that is supposed to promise a fine day. And it was with this latter view of it that the gardener, or the farmer, or the farm-labourer in the east of

Somersetshire used to say to me as a child, "That's the pride of the morning," or "That's only the pride of the morning."

JOHN HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL, JUN. This phrase can scarcely be called a provincialism, as MR. HOTTEN supposes. He heard it in Middlesex, I have heard it in numerous parts of Devon and Cornwall, and a few days ago, when I spoke of it in a somewhat large party, it was stated, on competent authority, to be a common expression in Kent, Norfolk, and Dorset-, Worcester-, and Herefordshires. The prevalent form seems to be the "Pride of the morning."

Torquay.

WM. PENGELLY.

RUNIC INSCRIPTION AT ST. MOLIO (3rd S. xi. 194, 334, 499.)-So long as DR. WILSON fails to recognise the Icelandic sign týr, in the first letter of the intermediate word of the Runic inscription, carved within the water-worn recess on Holy Island, and confounds the Greek eta with the letter H, from its apparent resemblance to that character, he has more reason to correct his own

"epigraphy" than draw attention to my deficiencies in this respect, real or supposed.

DR. WILSON will be pleased to observe that I am not the author, but the expounder, of the inscription. I am not bound to explain why the characters tyr and hagl have been used, in this instance, in place of the usual thurs. Sufficient for my purpose that I have accurately represented the fact. I answer, once for all, that I submitted a cast of this inscription to a gentleman well skilled in Northern Runic literature, who quite confirmed my reading. The letters of the intermediate word certainly are, as I read, t, h, a, n, e. If your correspondent DR. WILSON can find in these anything other than the Norse word thane, he must possess a fertile imagination. I have not seen the new edition of the Prehistoric Annals, but do not accept DR. WILSON's representation of the character in dispute, as given in the first.

I cannot help what Professor Munch may have said in regard to this-to me at least-apocryphal saint. I am a disciple and tributary of Professor Fact. So far as I am aware, Professor Munch did not say that this inscription does not contain the word thane. J. C. RR.*

As I have occasionally contributed to "N. & Q.," and have usually signed my communications with the initials of my name, it may be well to state that the article on "Scottish Archæology (p. 334) is not by me. J. C. ROBERTSON.

Precincts, Canterbury.

I have been attracted by DR. WILSON's rejoinder to your correspondent J. C. R. with reference to the Runic inscription in St. Molio's cave. I beg leave to suggest that the character which ahane, is not accurately represented in the PrehisDR. WILSON reads as a in the imaginary word

toric Annals.

No doubt, as there given, it is the character ár in one of its forms; but in the inscription itself the diagonal line, projecting downward, proceeds from a point nearer to the top of the perpendicular line, and certainly suggests to me the idea of a carelessly-formed t. Another circumstance in favour of this view is that the actual letter a in the same word, and also that in the word raist, are in another form of the character, represented by a diagonal line intersecting the perpendicular line (projecting downward from before, and upward from behind). In anything of this kind which has fallen under my notice I have found the same form of character preserved in every recurrence of the same letter throughout the entire inscription. Upon the whole I am inclined to adopt J. C. R.'s reading of the intermediate word thane, which makes sense of it, and accords with the ordinary import and style of

[* We have ventured to make a slight alteration in the signature of our more recent correspondent, to avoid future mistakes as to identity of communication.-ED.]

Runic inscriptions. No doubt the th is usually represented by the character thurs. In this inscription, however, we appear to be presented with an exception.

The idea that two of the words are Norse and one Celtic seems rather far-fetched and fanciful, and, as it appears to me, not very probable.

Your learned correspondent DR. WILSON seems to set great store on an acquaintance with the Northern Runic alphabet. A knowledge of this might be acquired by any one during a lesson of a quarter of an hour.

Glasgow.

S. M.

Every die has its consecutive number. When the minter has a die given him to use, his name is registered against the number borne by the die; so that if, on examination, a coin is found to be defectively struck, from the die wanting cleaning or otherwise, the number in question shows at once who is to blame.

The florin bears this "check number" on the obverse, under the neck, at the side of the engraver's initials, and it reads "7. W.W.," or 25. W.W."

On the half-sovereign this number is below the shield on the reverse; on the shilling and the sixpence on the reverse, same as on the sovereign, i.e., below the tie of the laurels. F. J. J.

It is stated in Cowper's admirable prose piece respecting his pet hares, that on two occasions one of the hares testified his gratitude for kindand that in a most elaborate manner. ness received by licking the hand of his master,

If I remember rightly (though I have not read the work for several years past), a somewhat similar incident is recorded in the episode in Tristram Shandy with reference to the poor overworked and ill-fed ass by the roadside, to whom a maccaroon is given, accompanied by kind words. in this kind is that which is contained in CowBut perhaps the most extraordinary ascription per's fine paraphrase of the prophetic vision, in "The Winter Walk at Noon":

"That the gods met one day in Chorcan, the paradise

possible to find a faultless prince or no. All denied it except Vachichten, who maintained that Achandirenhis disciple-had no fault. On this Vichoura Moutren said that if Achandiren were placed in his power, he would show how much Vachichten was mistaken. The gods consented, and Vichoura Moutren put the victim to every conceivable trial; dethroned him; reduced him to poverty; killed his only son; carried off his wife," &c.

Achandiren, however, remained steadfast through all his trials, and was eventually rewarded by the gods in an extraordinary manner, and had his wife and son restored to him. Whence did the legend originate, and what is its age?

WM. PICKARD.

SWORD QUERY: SAHAGUM (3rd S. xi. 296, 431.) The Irish are particularly famous for absurd derivations, and their language being almost unknown