Oct. 23. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



399 



by the investigations of Professor Way and Mr. 

 Paine of Farnbam, large open excavations having 

 been discovered by these gentlemen, with trees of 

 ancient growth flourishing therein, I shall feel 

 much obliged if your correspondent will favour 

 me, through your columns, with the information 

 whether a copy or translation of Cardanus can be 

 found in any of the London public libraries ? 



In the forthcoming November number of the 

 Farmers' Magazine, I have a paper on " Top- 

 dressing soils with mineral substances," in which 

 the observations of Pliny here alluded to are 

 quoted verbatim from Holland's translation. But 

 in an unpublished essay on the same subject, 

 which obtained a prize from the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society of England, I quoted several addi- 

 tional remarks by Pliny to the same effect. 



It would be a curious circumstance if further 

 inquiries should prove that England centuries ago 

 supplied other parts of the world with fossil 

 guano, and then abandoned its use at home, the 

 latter circumstance doubtless owing to abusing its 

 use, as is often done with lime and other calca- 

 reous manures. Thos. Rowlandson, 



Ecplie^ to i^t'nor ^xittitS, 



Eiehreis (Vol. vi., p. 316.). — The proponents of 

 " Minor Queries " generally expect speedier replies 

 than can be hoped for by those whose more com- 

 plex interrogations are classed in your excellent 

 periodical under the head " Queries." The minor 

 querists should therefore pay particular attention — 

 if they have not already done so — to the friendly 

 words of admonition which your acute correspon- 

 dent C. FoKBEs gave to all of us in a recent Num- 

 ber, on the subject of the urgent need of a plain 

 reference as the accompaniment of every quotation. 



Integer (the querist respecting " Eiebreis ") 

 quotes Sandys (Trax>els, pp. 67, 68.), without men- 

 tioning what edition he refers to : I turn to a copy 

 at hand of Sandys' Travailes, sixth edition, 1658, 

 and find the passage " into the same hue," &c., in 

 page 35., running thus : 



" Into the same hue (bat likely they naturally are 

 so) do they die their CT/e-breis and eye-browes," &c. 



It is quite certain that by eye-breis old Sandys 

 meant eyelashes ; for, in the preceding paragraph, 

 he had referred to eyelids specifically. A ready 

 clue to the general derivation of eye-breis and 

 eye-browes is to be found in the Anglo-Saxon 

 Eagan-bregh, -bruwa, -brcew ; but I apprehend 

 that your philological correspondents will have 

 great difficulty in settling whether any one or 

 others of these terms belong more exclusively to 

 the meaning of eyebrows than of eyelashes. 



Fkactioti. 



Lady Day in Harvest (Vol. vi., p. 350.). — I am 

 thankful to your correspondents P. A. F. and 



K. I. A. for their notices of my request ; but with 

 respect to the real Lady-Day in harvest, I confess 

 my desires remain unsatisfied. In Stow's Annals^ 

 1575, mention is made of two Lady-Days as oc- 

 curring about the 15 th of August, and another in 

 September. As the bequest connected with my 

 inquiry was made in 1622, and intended for a 

 parish in Middlesex, in which county the harvest 

 is in full gathering in August, I am induced to 

 think that the Feast of the Assumption was the 

 day meant by the donor. The charity being con- 

 sidered as mixed up with popery, fell into disuse 

 in the great rebellion in the reign of Charles I.,, 

 and remained so for many years. I hope to be 

 further obliged by the notice of some of your 

 learned readers. H. Edwakds- 



Walter Haddon (Vol. vi., p. 317.) was succes- 

 sively Fellow of King's College, Cambridge; Doc- 

 tor of Civil Law and King's Professor, in that 

 faculty ; public orator, and Master of Trinity 

 Hall, Cambridge, and President of Magdalen 

 College, Oxford; died January 21, 1571-2, and 

 was burled in Christ Church, London. Mr. Hart 

 will find some memorials of this eminent scholar in 

 the Biographia Britannica, vol. Iv. p. 2458. ; Lloyd's 

 State Worthies, 8vo. 1670, p. 627. ; Wood's Fastiy 

 by Bliss, vol. i. col. 136. ; Chalmers's Biog. Die- 

 tionary, vol. xlx. p. 11.; Fuller's Worthies, by Nut- 

 tall, vol. i. p. 206. ; Dyer's History of Cambridge, 

 vol. ii. p. 144. John I. Dredge. 



Sir Kenelm Digby (VoL vi., p. 174.). — A valu- 

 able portrait of Kenelm Digby, when a young 

 man, by Cornelius Jansen, and which Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds is said to have considered one of the 

 finest of this master in the kingdom, Is in the pic- 

 ture gallery at Althorp. A very beautiful en- 

 graving of this portrait will be found In Dibdin's 

 ^des Althorpiance, vol. I. p. 265. In the same 

 collection is a portrait of Lady Venetia Digby after 

 Vandyke. (See Vol. i., p. 269.) 



John I. Dredge. 



Official Costume of the Judges (Vol. vl., p. 223.). 

 — I find the following note in my common -place 

 book. Perhaps it may be of a little use to J. H. ; 

 but I am sorry I have not been able to verify or 

 particularise more fully the reference : 



" Serjeant- Counters, as they were anciently called," 

 says Sir Henry Chauncey, " being clerks or religious 

 men, being bound by their order to shave their heads, 

 they were for decency allowed to cover their bald pates 

 with a coif, which was a thin linen cover for the head, 

 gathered together in the form of a skull-cap or helmet, 

 by which the serjeants-at-law are known, who are of 

 the highest degree in our law. From the word coifa 

 cometh the French word coife or coeffe, otherwise 

 scnffion. These coifs were soon after turned into coifs 

 of white silk ; whence these serjeant-counters or 

 pleaders were called Serjeants of the coife, and every 



