Aug. 27. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



207 



' querulous ' and ' querulousness,' have gotten ' quarrel' 

 as well. " — On the Study of Words, p. 57. 



" We might safely conclude," Mr. Trench premises, 

 •' that a nation would not be likely tamely to submit 

 to tyranny and wrong, which made ' quarrel ' out of 

 * querela.' " 



This, I say, is very ingenious, but did ^^w nation 

 make quarrel out of querela ? Did they not take 

 it ready made from their neighbours, the French, 

 Itah"an, Spanisli, who have all performed, and, I 

 presume, led the way in performing, the same 

 exploit ; showing that they must all have had the 

 same disposition inhering in them to set about 

 righting and redressing themselves, though not 

 always, perhaps, Avith so prompt and active a 

 vigour as that ascribed to the English by Mr. 

 Trench. Q, 



Bloomsbury. 



Wild Plants^ and their Names (Vol. vii., p. 233.). 

 — A preparation from St. John's Wort, called red 

 oil, is used in the United States for the cure of 

 bruises and cuts. It may have been formerly 

 used in England. St. John's Wort is one of the 

 commonest v/eeds in the Middle States. Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



Jeremy Taylor and Christopher Lord Hatton 

 (Vol. vii., p. 305.). — Bishop Taylor uses the word 

 relative in the sense of a dependant or humble 

 friend in several places in his works ; a fact which 

 his editor. Bishop Heber, missed observing, as 

 appears from a passage in the Preface to Taylor's 

 Works. M. E. 



Philadelphia. 



Burial on the North Side of Churches (Vol. vi., 

 p. 112. &c.). — The opinion of your corre:;pondent 

 Seleucus, that the avoidance of burial on the 

 north side of a churchyard is to be attributed to 

 its being generally the unfrequented side of the 

 church, is borne out by the fact, that in the rare 

 cases where the entrance to the church is only on 

 the north side, the graves are also to be found 

 there in preference to being on the south, which 

 in such a case would of course be " the back of 

 the church." Seleucus mentions one instance of 

 a church entered only from the north. To this 

 example may be added the little village church 

 of Martin Hussingtree, between Worcester and 

 Droitwich, where the sole entrance is on the 

 north, and where all the burials are on the same 

 side of the church. Cuthbeet Bede, B. A. 



Rubrical Query (Vol. vii., p. 247.). — The con- 

 tradiction of the two rubrics is purely imaginary. 

 Both are to be closely construed. The j^r*^ enjoins 

 notice to be given of Communion as of any other 

 festival ; the second provides that in the same ser- 

 vice (notice having been so given) the Exhortation 



shall be the last impression on the thoughts of the 

 congregation. S. Z. Z. S. 



Stone Pillar Worship (Vol. vii., p. 383.). — The 

 Rowley Hills near Dudley, twelve in number, and 

 each bearing a distinctive name, make up what 

 may be called a mountain of basaltic rock, which 

 extends for several miles in the direction of Hales 

 Owen. From the face of a precipitous termin- 

 ation of the southern extremity of these hills rises 

 a pillar of rock, known as the " The Hail Stone." 

 I conjecture that the word hail may be a corrup- 

 tion of the archaic word haly, holy ; and that this 

 pillar of rock may have been the object of religious 

 worship in ancient times. The name may have 

 been derived directly from the Anglo-Saxon Haleg 

 stan, holy stone. It is about three quarters of a 

 mile distant from an ancient highway called 

 "The Portway," which is supposed to be of British 

 origin, and to have led to the salt springs at 

 Droitwich. I have no knowledge of any other 

 place bearing the name of Hail Stone, except a 

 farm in the parish of West Fetton in Shropshire, 

 which is called " The Hail Stones." No stone 

 pillars are now to be found upon it : there is a 

 quarry in it which shows that the sand rock lies 

 there very near the surface. Dr. Plot, in his 

 History of Staffordshire (p. 170.), describes the 

 rock on the Rowley Hills as being " as big and as 

 high on one side as many church steeples are." 

 He relates that he visited the spot in the year 

 1680, accompanied by a land-surveyor, who, ten 

 years before that time, had noticed that at this 

 place the needle of the compass was turned six 

 degrees from its due position. The influence 

 which the iron in basaltic rocks has on the needle 

 was not known at that period, and the Doctor 

 makes two conjectures in explanation of the phe- 

 nomenon observed. First, he says, " there must 

 be in these lands that miracle of Nature we call a 

 loadstone ;" and he adds, " unless it come to pass 

 by some old armour buried hereabout in the late 

 civil war." The sonorous property of the rock led 

 him to conjecture " that there might be here a 

 vault in which some great person of ancient times 

 might be buried under this natural monument ; 

 but digging down by it as near as I could where 

 the sound directed, 1 could find no such matter." 



Plot does not mention the name by which this 

 I'ock was known. It is not mentioned at all by 

 either Erdeswick, Shaw, or Pitt, in their Histories 

 of Staffordshire. N. W. S. 



Bad (Vol. vi., p. 509.). — Home Tooke's ety- 

 mology may, perhaps, satisfy B. H. Cowper's in- 

 quiry, or at least gratify his curiosity. He as- 

 sumes the bay or bark of a dog to be excited by 

 what it abhors, hates, defies; and farther, that our 

 epithet of bad is applied by us to that, which, for 

 reasons wliich we may call moral (cestheticy I be- 



