2»'» S. VIII. Nov. 19. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



413 



however, so high, that the Lucchese merchant re- 

 turned without making any purchase, (See the 

 Cortigiano, vol. i. pp. 182. 184. ed. 1803.) L. 



" Cutting Ones Stick" — This vulgarism of fast 

 life would appear to be a corruption of a phrase 

 not uncommon in the high life of the last century. 

 Walpole, writing to Lord Strafford, Oct. 16, 1770, 

 in reply to his inquiries after his gout, says : — 



" I came to town on Sunday, and can creep about my 

 room even Avitbout a stick, -which is more felicity to me 

 than if I had got a white one. I do not aim yet at such 

 preferment as walking up stairs ; but having moulted my 

 stick, I flatter myself I shall come forth again without 

 being lame," 



John Times. 



Drat 'em, Oddrot ''em. — The following sugges- 

 tion as to the origin of the expressions drat 'em, 

 oddrot 'em in old English comic writers, if new, 

 may interest some of your readers. Probably the 

 full expression was originally " may the gods out- 

 root them." This would easily pass into oddrot 'em, 

 and drat 'em would as easily follow. 



The expression is used in Latin comedy ; cf. 

 Terence, Andria, Act IV. Sc. 4. v. 22., and Heau- 

 iontim., Act III. Sc. 3. v. 28. : — 

 " Di te eradicent." 



Cantab, 



British Officers, 1711. — When the expedition 

 against Canada was got up in the reign of Queen 

 Anne, thirty Serjeants were sent to New York 

 with lieutenants' commissions, and to be employed 

 on that service. They were afterwards (Dec. 25, 

 1712) put on half-pay in that colony. The fol- 

 lowing are the names of twenty of those offi- 

 cers : — 



William Hellen. 

 Thomas Garlands. 

 Andrew Nickell. 

 Alexr. Blackall. 

 John Bennett. 

 Richard Kitchiner. 

 Timothy Bagley. 

 Martin Groundman. 

 Walter Harris. 

 Abraham Gee. 

 E. B. O'Callaghan. 



William Matthews. 

 Matthew Low. 

 James Dunbar. 

 William Moor. 

 Edmund Blood.* 

 James Hall. 

 Philip Buchurst. 

 Samuel Babington. 

 Thomas Burnit. 

 William Wilkinson. 



Albany, N. Y. 



" In the wrong box." — If you have not already 

 done so, will you make a note that to George 

 Lord Lyttelton we are indebted for the above ex- 

 pression ? His lordship always declared to his 

 friends how much happier he should have been 

 had he been brought up to some profession or 



* A gentleman of this name was placed on active ser- 

 vice in 1723, as lieutenant of a company then serving in 

 New York. He was nephew of Charles de la Fay, Under 

 Secretary of State, 1718-1736, whose sister married Col. 

 [Holcroft?] Blood, and of whom it is stated that she was 

 " much fitter to command an army than the colonel," 



business, so difficult did he find it to settle his at- 

 tention to anything to which he was not absolutely 

 obliged to settle it. He was of rather a melan- 

 choly disposition, and used to tell his friends that 

 when he went to Vauxhall he was always suppos- 

 ing pleasure to be in the next box to his, or, at 

 least, that he himself was so unhappily situated as 

 always to be in the xvrovg box for it. 



11. W. Hackwood. 



Singular Dei'ivation of the Epithet " Whig." — 

 Every reader of modern political history remem- 

 bers the initials of the statesmen that went to the 

 formation of the catch-word Cabal ; and of those 

 which gave rise to the singular composition of 

 Smectymnus in the days of Milton, as well as Dr. 

 Johnson's definition of Whig, as the Anglo-Saxon 

 for whey or butter-milk ; also the name of a party 

 in Queen Anne's reign, well described by Swift, 

 But I have recently heard from a learned friend, 

 who at the time would not refer to his authority, 

 that he had read that an appropriate application, 

 if not exactly derivation, had been supplied by 

 the initials of the words of the motto of a party 

 about Cromwell's time, viz. " We hope in God." 



Can any of your numerous political and philo- 

 logical readers inform me whence the origin of 

 this derivation is to be found ? I shall be glad of 

 any information referring to the above subject, 



K. F. W. 



^mtitg* 



WILLIAM NICOLSON, D.D., ARCHBISHOP Or 

 CASHEL. 



Archdeacon Cotton, in his Fasti Ecclesias Hi- 

 bernicce, vol. i. p. 17, speaking of this prelate, who 

 was not only a zealous antiquary and a learned 

 historian and philologist, as is proved by his nu- 

 merous valuable writings, but was also "a profi- 

 cient in natural history," informs us that he has 

 " a small MS. volume written by him, comprising 

 an account of plants growing in Cumberland, and 

 especially in the neighbourhood of Carlisle, as ob- 

 served by himself in his walks," Archdeacon 

 Cotton likewise remarks : — 



" Some manuscript volumes of his Diary are in posses- 

 sion of his family connexions in Ireland, viz. the Maule- 

 verers, descendants of the Rev, Bellingham Mauleverer, 

 son-in-law of the Bishop. And his Commonplace book is 



in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin One of 



them [the volumes of the Diary, as he mentions in the 

 FaBti, vol. iii. p. 323], which I have perused, is full of in- 

 teresting information, and breathes an uniform spirit of 

 Christian uprightness, piety, and content." 



Might it not be well to put in print, pro bono 

 publico, at least a portion of the foregoing, written 

 by one who (to say nothing of his other acquire- 

 ments) has been termed by Bishop Gibson, in a 

 note to his edition of Camden's Britannia (fol. 

 1722), " a man eminent for his knowledge in the 

 languages of the Northern nations " ? 



