athair; privo from reub; pro from roi; per from ro; piscis from iasg; post from ais. He says that the Spanish lleno or leno is from the Latin plenus; but this is only from the Spanish omitting the p in plenus. It looks as if pan had nothing to do with lann, a church. What can it mean? I have not been at Panmure, and do not know if there is any hill there; pan might be the Gaelic beinn, a hill (pron. bann); but this is not very likely. Near Panmure is Panbride and Panlathy; Bride is St. Bride or St. Bridget; Lathy is the shortened name of a saint. It would be very interesting to find out the meaning of pan in these names; they are like those mysterious Standing-Stones, which for unknown centuries have survived their history. In lann, a church, 7 is an essential letter, and if it ever existed in the place-name Panmure, it would be there still. I have looked at Robertson's Gaelic Topography of Scotland, and also his Historical Proofs about the Highlanders; and Taylor's Words and Places, but Panmure is not mentioned. THOMAS STRATTON.

SWIMMING (6th S. iii. 126).—The first of the Hieroclis Philosophi Facetic is :—

Σκολαστικὸς κολυμβᾶν βουλόμενος παρὰ μικρὸν ἐπνίγη· ὤμοσεν οὖν μὴ ἀψασθαι ὕδατος, ἐὰν μὴ πρῶτον μάθη κολυμβάν.

Hierocles, In Aur. Pythag. Carm., p. 399, Lond., 1673. It occurs also in the more recent Philogelos, Hierocl. et Philagr. Facetia, ed. A. Eberhard, p. 7, Berol., 1869, with a slight variation :Σκολαστικὸς κολυμβῶν παρὰ μικρὸν ἐπνίγη· ὤμοσε δὲ εἰς ὕδωρ μὴ εἰσελθεῖν, ἐὰν μὴ μάθῃ πρῶτον καλῶς κολυμβάν.

In the "critical commentary" upon these "faceti vel potius ineptia" it is remarked, "quo tempore Hierocles ille et Philagrius vixerint, non magis constat quam cetera" (ib., p. 62).

ED. MARSHALL.

"COMMENTARIE ON TITUS": "BEAR THE BELL": AGAINST THE HAIR" (6th S. iii. 125).-I suppose your correspondent sent the extracts from the Commentarie on Titus because they contained the above expressions, than which, probably, none are commoner in old literature; in fact they are both yet current, and instances of their use in these days are by no means rare. A few early examples will be sufficient :—

"It wolde not become them with me for to mell:
For of all barones bolde I bere the bell."

Skelton's Magnyfycence (about 1520), 1. 1515. "An horse because he draweth nerest to man's sense, and is conuersant amonges men, is therefore partaker also of suche myseries as men are subiecte to. As who not seeldome, whyles hee is ashamed to be ouer runne for the belle dooth tyre hym selfe."-Prayse of Follie, 1577, E viii.

* Skelton often uses the phrase.

"TO MAKE A LEG" (6th S. iii. 149).—I think the following quotation is almost decisive for the meaning of bowing the head and shoulders forward, according to the traditional practice in Durham Cathedral and many other churches :

"Moreover, when your altar was thus with excessive cost decked, and garnished, to the admiration of the beholders, you, Richard Hunt, Dean, calling the quiremen all before you, petty canons, singing-men, choristers, who by the statutes of the church are injoined to doe reverence by making legs to the Dean, you, I say, told them, that you would have them doe reverence to the Altar, you car'de not whether they made legs to you or no, but you bade them be sure and make legs to the Altar: your self giving them an example, who, when you have done all your praiers to God upon your knees, then rising up and standing on your feet, before your departure, you will not be so unmanerly as to turne your backe to the Altar, having not taken your leave of God with a lowe leg to him at the Altar, which you make very solemnly, with marvelous devotion and humilitie.” Articles against John Cosin and others, printed in Cosin's Corresp. Surtees Soc., lii. p. 179. The words of the statute are: "Ad ipsum in Stallo constitutum inclinabunt omnes majores et minores ecclesiæ ministri chorum ingressuri vel egressuri." The present Dean of Durham and all the cathedral clergy, except three of the canons who were appointed by Bishop Baring, follow the custom so long unbroken of bowing towards the altar on leaving the choir. I suppose it was called “making legs" because to incline the body forward the legs must be very firmly planted on the ground and straightened as far back as they will go. So "bowing and scraping" is bowing forward, throwing one leg back in order to keep one's balance, and in so doing scraping the foot on the ground. J. T. F.

Bp. Hatfield's Hall, Durham.

"To make a leg" seems equivalent to making a bow in the present day. Thus, in the Parson's Wedding (Act II. sc. vii.), one of the characters "beats about with three graceful legs," i. e. bows. The phrase is supposed in the first instance to mean an awkward clownish mode of salutation among the lower class, made by throwing out the right leg, so that in Will Summer's Last Will and Testament we read of "beggars making legs" after

being entertained. Behind the scenes it was so familiar, that in Chettle's Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, 1601, the stage direction to the actor in the margin is "Make legs." "He made a leg And Locke oband went away," writes Swift.

serves,

"If the boy should not put off his hat nor make legs more gracefully, a dancing-master would cure that defect." The expression in its entire and original form occurs in Marlowe's Edward II., 1598, viz., "making low leggs to a nobleman"; and in Dekker's Wonderful Yeare, 1603, "Janus ....... made a very masterly lowe legge." Vide Shakespere, All's Well, II. ii.; Hudibras, pt. iii. c. i. 11. 352-3; Beaumont's Letter to Jonson, E and F, x. 365; Dodsley's Old Plays, vols. xi. 509; ix. 69; WILLIAM PLATT. ii. 340.

115, Piccadilly.

For a full explanation of this phrase take the following, from Smyth's MS. Lives of the Berkeleys, vol. iii., p. 855 :—

"For the awing of her family, (I say not regulating the expense according to the revenue,) and the education of youth, she had no compeer, which I could much enlarge in many perticulars. I will only mention one instance; that as myself in the 26th of Elizabeth (then about seaventeen,) crossed the upper part of the gallery at the Fryars in Coventry where shee then dwelt, and walked having a covered dish in my hands with her son's break fast, wherewith I was hastening, and thereby presented her, (then at the farther end,) with a running legge or curtesy, as loth too long to stay upon that duty, shee called mee back to her, and to make ere I departed, one hundred leggs (soe to call them) at the least; and when I had done well and missed the like in my next assay, I was then to begin againe."

J. H. COOKE.

J. K.

Gospel Elm" which marked the boundary of the borough is given in "N. & Q.,” 3rd S. v. 306; and in 4th S. viii. 283, a note is made of the fall of a bare oak which stood just where the parishes and manors of Wargrave and Hurley in Berkshire meet, and the writer says that such oaks often mark boundaries in that county. The following lines occur in the 502nd poem of Herrick's Hesperides. The poem is addressed "To Andrea ":"Dearest, bury me Under that holy oak, or Gospel tree; Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon Me, when thou yearly go'st procession.' And Ebenezer Elliott, the "Corn-Law Rhymer,"

says:

"The great unpaid! the prophet, lo! Sublime he stands beneath the Gospel tree." It is evident from these lines that the trees were connected with religious observances. There is a place called Round Oak near Dudley, and another called Selly Oak near Birmingham. GEORGE PRICE.

The Oak of Honour (Manning and Bray), of Blanch, Camberwell, and the Oak of Arnon, of Rocque, are of the Gospel Oak traditions. Manning and Bray, vol. iii., p. 402, say :—

"Here is the Oak of Honour Hill, from a tradition that Queen Elizabeth once dined under an oak here. An oak is still growing on the supposed spot, and under which, being within a few feet of the southern boundary of the parish, the 104th Psalm is sung on the septennial perambulation of the parish, and the ceremony of bumping the minister, churchwardens, &c., is most religiously observed."

At another boundary is the Vicar's Oak. Possibly it was hereabout-certainly at Hatcham, at the

public. Mr. Gosse has a special charm of style, invaluable at all times, but indispensable where it is necessary to create an interest in a given theme. His bright enthusiasm and lightly-borne research at once win the heart of the reader, and place him on the best of terms with the author. Then, like Horace, Mr. Gosse himself is numerosus, and speaks with the authority of a craftsman. In a few gracefully written prefatory pages he tells us all that it is requisite to know of the history of the "English ode" from Spenser to Swinburne, not (we are glad to see) omitting to note the hitherto unrecognized part that Congreve played in its develop ment. Many of the poems that follow are naturally classic; but, as might be anticipated, there are also some which deserve a better fame than they have received. Ben Jonson's nobly virile address "To Himself," after the failure of the New Inn, can scarcely be called unfamiliar, but it is not sufficiently known, while Randolph's delightful stanzas "To Master Anthony Stafford" are in the nature of a discovery. For reasons which he gives, Mr. Gosse has made no selection from Herrick. Nevertheless we cannot but regret that the charming lines "To his peculiar friend Mr. John Wickes, under the name of Postumus," have not been contrasted with Bandolph's. On the other hand, Prior's clever parody of Boileau's Ode sur la Prise de Namur makes a pleasant variety among the graver utterances. But in the main the great odes are written by the great poets; and the "Contents" proves conclusively how large a proportion of the best examples of this loftiest and most sustained of English forms is due to Dryden and Milton, to Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth. The final arrangement brings into almost immediate comparison the Laureate's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and that of Mr. Swinburne To Victor Hugo in Exile. Mr. Tennyson had a splendid national subject, which he has treated in a stately and memorable way; but the rushing verses of the younger singer show unmistakably that, when the subject comes, his instrument, too, is grandly strung. We congratulate Mr. Gosse upon this elegant little addition to the "Parchment Library." To value it rightly will be a test of taste.

The Provincial Letters of Pascal. Edited by John De Soyres. (Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co.) THE Provincial Letters are not certainly Pascal's great work, but nevertheless their literary excellence as well as the character of their contents have secured for them an enduring interest. At the period of their first publication in France the state of religious feeling was this. The rigid and inflexible school of the Jansenists was seeking to gain a new power for religion by a recurrence to its first principles, reforming the doctrine without breaking the unity of the Church, referring all that was of good to the absolute sovereignty of grace, arbitrary and irresistible in its access and results. Side by side with this was the old orthodoxy, content with its traditional faith, not denying the power of grace, but recognizing the freedom of the will, the value of good works, and the Vocation of all. There was also the presence of the great and powerful order of the Jesuits, seeking to adapt the ancient faith to the necessities of modern life, having a supreme advantage in the perfect obedience of its members and the Papal faculties which it had received. It proposed to itself no destruction of the moral sense, but a reform in the method of controlling its exercise. Abandoning the severer aspect of religious discipline as suited only to particular minds, it aimed at making the principles of religion acceptable to all, and available in every condition of life by direction of the conscience. And an ethical laxity was the not unnatural effect of this. When Pascal retired to Port Royal, the stronghold

of Jansenism, it was greatly in need of his support, and in defence of its principles he proceeded to attack the casuistry of the rival system of the Jesuits, as that by which the moral sense was perverted and the commission of crimes justified. Nor did he merely propose a conflict with theologians. He desired and obtained a more general and popular success. And so in the Letters the very actors in the scenes of human life and interest are vividly represented. And these, by their freshness of thought, their power of language, their force of wit and argument, were possessed of an irresistible charm. In the first three he dealt with the difficult question of grace, rendered more difficult still by the treatment which it had received from those whom he undertook to defend. In the rest he had an easier and more congenial task, exposing the evils of his opponents' casuistry in its most dangerous forms, its injury to the moral sense, its justification of wrong. The letters have passed through a variety of editions and translations, but the English reader has now for the first time an opportunity of studying them in the original under the guidance of so able an editor as Mr. De Soyres, and with the valuable help which he supplies. Besides a carefully revised text, there is a preliminary introduction in which, after the writer's own examination of the subject, there is a very complete reference to the authorities who may be consulted for further study or the identification of his own statements; and after each letter there are illustrative or explanatory notes. Some passages from the authors cited are still unverified; we beg to offer two. The reference to St. Chrysostom (p. 237) is to the terms wudov and ɛipwvevóμevog, which he makes use of in the Homilies on St. Matthew (Homm. xv., xxx., al. xxxi., Opp., t. vii., pp. 186c, 351a. ed. Ben.); while "les lois mêmes semblent offrir leurs armes (p. 292) is a translation of "aliquando gladium nobis ad occidendum hominem ab ipsis porrigi legibus" in Cicero's oration for Milo (c. iii. fin.). The volume has the further advantage of a most attractive appearance.

"

MESSRS. LONGMANS & Co. announce as preparing for publication, Vols. IV. and V. of Ihne's History of Rome,The Bronze Implements, Arms, and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland, by John Evans, D.C.L., &c.,-The and Greek and Roman Sculpture, by Walter C. Perry. Fall of the Monarchy of Charles I., by S. R. Gardiner,

Notices to Correspondents.

H. T. E.-The words of the conundrum seem to be well known.

J. M. C. ("Fig Sunday").-See "N. & Q.," 2nd S. i. 227.

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A. C. S.-Forwarded.

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