2nd S. No 50., Dec. 13. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



479 



Rue (2"'* S. ii. 351.) —Miller (Gard. and Bot. 

 Diet, Lond, 1807, says, " This herb was anciently 

 named in English Herh Grace, or Herb of Grace." 

 Warburton says that it had the latter name from 

 its having been used in exorcisms. When Ophelia, 

 in Hamlet, says to the Queen, " There's rue for 

 you, and here's some for me ; we may call it Plerb 

 of Grace o' Sundays : " — the fair moralist has no 

 reference to this plant being used in exorcisms 

 performed in churches on Sundays; but means 

 only that the queen may, with peculiar propriety, 

 on Sundays, when she solicits pardon for that 

 crime which she has so much occasion to rue and 

 repent of, call her rue herb of grace. It was, in- 

 deed, the common name for rue in Shakspeare's 

 time ; and Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart 

 Courtier, has this passage : 



" Some of them smiled and said, rue was called herhe 

 grace, which though thej' scorned in their youth, they 

 might wear in their age, and that it was never too late 

 to say miserere." (Malone and Henlej' in Steevens's Shak- 

 speare.) 



See also the lines beginning, — 



" Here did she drop a tear," 

 in Richard II., where the gardener is speaking of 

 the queen. Also Winters Tale, where Perdita 

 says : 



" Reverend Sirs, 

 For you there's rosemary and rue ; these keep 

 Seeming and favour all the winter long. 

 Grace and remembrance be to you both." 



Perhaps the above may lead to the origin of its 

 use. Query, may it not be placed in the dock as 

 a preventive against fainting ? R. S. Chabnock. 



Gray's Inn. 



Canonicals worn in Public (2"" S. i. 82. 521.) — 

 At Eideford, in North Devon, some thirty years 

 ago, the clergyman always appeared in canonicals, 

 when on the road to church on Sundays. It is 

 still the practice to do so in some parts of Nor- 

 thumberland at the present day. 



Henrt T. Riley. 



Barony of Molingaria (2"'^ S. i. 149.)— May 

 not this possibly be MuUingar, in Ireland ? 



Henby T. Rilet. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 



As surely as the scarlet holly berries flashing in the 

 hedges portend in the country the approach of Christmas, 

 so surely do books, handsomely illustrated and gor- 

 geously' bound, announce in "the Kow" that the Season 

 of gift-making is at hand. One of these heralds of 

 Christmas is now before us, in an edition of Sir \V. 

 Scott's Lord of the Isles, loith all the Introductions and the 

 Editor's Notes, and illustrated hy numerous Engravings on 

 Wood, from Drawings by Birket Foster and John Gilbert. 

 It is indeed altogether a very beautiful volume. Scott's 



poetry is the very poetry for artists to illustrate; and 

 with a subject so congenial to their pencils, Birket Foster 

 and John Gilbert may well be depended upon for a series 

 of clever and artistic pictures. They have done their 

 work well ; and set off as it is by the united efforts of 

 printer and binder, the Lord of the Isles is a book worthy 

 of the Season. 



He who has the gift of investing the realities of History 

 with the charms of its Romance will find his reward in 

 many readers. This gift is obviously in the hands of 

 Mr. T. Adolphus Trollope, and consequently The Girlhood 

 of Catherine de Medici will be perused with delight by 

 many who would have turned away, with indifference at 

 least, from the same facts if presented to them by a mere 

 Dryasdust. The subject is indeed an interesting one, and, 

 if we agree with Mr. Trollope, that "Catherine — excep- 

 tional portent as she has been considered — was in truth 

 but the normal and natural product of her time," let us 

 hope that he is right in his second conclusion, and be 

 thankful for it, " that a moral deformity so monstrous 

 could not be generated by the social life of our own day." 



We have before us just now two works, both calculated 

 to minister to the growing taste for natural historj', and 

 consequently in some measure alike ; but in their treat- 

 ment essentially different. The first, by Mr. Noel Hum- 

 phrej's, is entitled Ocean Gardens : the History of the 

 Marine Aquarium, and the best Methods now adopted for 

 its Establishment and Preservation. The work is illus- 

 trated with twelve plates printed in colours, and is a 

 handsome and instructive volume for beginners. The 

 other will delight the more advanced students. It is the 

 Second Part of Mr. Gosse's 3Ianual of Marine Zoology 

 for the British Isles. It completes this profound natu- 

 ralist's history of our Marine Fauna ; is illustrated, like its 

 predecessor, with no less than three hundred and thirty- 

 nine figures, is distinguished by the same minuteness and 

 accuracy of description, and forms a volume which no 

 one who possesses a Marine Aquarium should be without. 



BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES 



WANTED TO PURCHASE. 



Particulars of Price, &c. of the following Books to be sent direct to 

 the gentlemen by whom they are required, and whose names and ad- 

 dresses are given for tliat purpose : 



Pope's Letters. 2 Vols. Small 8vo. Cooper. 1737. 

 Pope's Letters to Cromweli,. Curll. 1727. 

 CuRLicisM Displayed. London. 12mo. 1718. 

 The Corliad. 12mo. London, 1729. 

 Key to the Donciad. I2mo. London, 1729. 



Ditto Ditto Second Edition. 1729. 



Ditto Ditto Third Edition. 1729. 



Court Poems. Dublin, 1716. 



Wanted by William J. Thorns, Esq., 2.5. Holywell Street, Millbank, 

 Westminster. 



The Sikoe of Kaeblaverock. Edited by Sir H. Nicolas. 



Wanted by G. Prideaux, Esq., Mill Lane, Plymouth. 



Owing to the number of Replies to Minor Queries waitirig for insef- 

 tioii, we have been obliyed to postpone many interesting papers, among 

 others. Queries respecting Theosophists and Mystics ; Mr. Marshall s 

 paper on Stock Frosts; Mr. Sidney Gibson on Traditions through few 

 l>inks ; and a very curious Description of an Early Alchymical MS., by 

 Cutiidert Bede. 



The Stray Notes on Curll having been intcrrvptedby the necessity 

 of further researches on one or ttco points will be resumed in our new 

 volume. 



O.B. will find the information of which he is in want respecting the 

 Bar of Michael Angelo in our 1st S. ii. 166. 



J. V. 7s our Correspondent sure that the article was not inserted f He 

 has not mentioned the subject, to we cannot at present state whether it ap- 

 peared or not. 



