Nov. 5. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



43^ 



tions, especially when any iron is in contact with 

 them, or in the soles of shoes or sandals studded 

 with nails. W. C. Trevelyan. 



Wallington, 



First and Last. — There cannot be two words 

 more different in meaning than these, and yet they 

 are both used to express the same sense ! Of 

 two authors equally eminent, one shall write that 

 a thing is of the.^rs^ and the other of the last im- 

 portance, though each means the greatest or ut- 

 most. How is this ? To me first appears pre- 

 ferable, though last may be justifiable. Being on 

 the subject of words, I am reminded of obnoxious, 

 which is applied in the strangest ways by different 

 authors. It is true that the Roman writers used 

 ohnoxiu^ in various senses ; but it does not seem 

 so pliable or smooth in English. Generally it is 

 held to indicate disagreeable or inimical, though 

 our dictionaries do not admit it to have either of 

 those meanings ! A. B. C. 



Cucumber Time. — This term, which the work- 

 ing-tailors of England use to denote that which 

 their masters call " the flat season," has been im- 

 ported from a country which periodically sends 

 many hundreds of its tailors to seek employment 

 in our metropolis. The German phrase is " Die 

 saure Gurken Zeit," or pickled gherkin time. A 

 misunderstanding of the meaning of the phrase j 

 may have given rise to the vulgar witticism, that i 

 tailors are vegetarians, who " live on cucumber " j 

 while at play, and on " cabbage " while at work, i 



N. W. S. 



MS. Sermons of the Eighteenth Century. — 

 Having lately become possessed, at the sale of an 

 old library, of some MS. Sermons by the Rev. J. 

 Harris, Rector of Abbotsbury, Dorset, from the 

 year 1741 to 1763, I shall be happy to place them 

 in the hands of any descendant of that gentleman. 



W. EWART. 

 Pimperne, Dorset. 



BoswelVs "Joh7ison.'" — In vol. v. p. 272. of my 

 favourite edition, and p. 784. of the edition in one 

 volume, Johnson, writing to Brocklesby, under 

 date Sept. 2, 1784, calls Windham "inter Stellas 

 Luna minores." IBoswell, in' a note, says, "It is 

 remarkable that, so good a Latin scholar as John- 

 son should have been so inattentive to the metre, 

 as by mistake to have written stellas instead of 

 ignes." Now, with all due deference, a Captain 

 of JSTatlve Infantry ventures to suggest that both 

 Stellas and ignes are wrong, and that Johnson was 

 thinking of the noble opening of Horace's 15th 

 Epode : 



" Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno, 

 Inter minora sidera." 



Bangalore. 



F. C. 



Stage Coaches. — It occurs to me as highly de- 

 sirable that, before the recollection of the old stage 

 coach has faded from the memory of all but the 

 oldest inhabitant, an authentic statement should 

 be placed on record of the length of the stages, 

 and the speed that was obtained, by this mode of 

 conveyance, in which England was for so many 

 years without a rival. 



The speed of mail coaches is, I believe, chroni- 

 cled in the British Almanac of the Society for 

 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge ; but their 

 speed, if I mistake not, was surpassed by that of 

 the "Rival," which travelled (from Monmouth, I 

 think) to London after the opening of the Great 

 Western Railway. 



Could any of your correspondents favour us- 

 with the time-bill of that coach, detailing the 

 length of the several stages, and the time of per- 

 formance ? It would also be interesting to chronicle 

 the period during which this rivalry with the 

 railway was maintained. Geo. E. Fbebe. 



Antecedents. — The word " antecedents," as a 

 plural, and in the sense attached to it by the 

 French, is not to be found in any English dic- 

 tionary that I have the means of consulting. And 

 yet it seems now to be commonly used as an 

 English expression, even by some of our best 

 writers. 



When was this word first imported, and by 

 whom ? I have just met with an instance of it in 

 Jerdan's Autobiography, vol. i. p. 131. : 



" I got him (Hammon), with a full knowledge of hi& 

 antecedents, into the employment of a humane and 

 worthy wine merchant of Bordeaux." 



Henbt H. Bresn. 



St. Lucia. 



The Letter X. — The letter X on brewers' casks 

 is probably thus derived : 



Simplex^=-smg\Q x, or X. 

 jDz/jt)Zea;= double x, or XX. 

 JVip/ex^: treble x, or XXX. 

 This was suggested by Owen's Epigram, lib. xii. 

 34. : 



" Laudatur vinum simplex, cervisia duplex. 

 Est bona duplicitas, optima simplicitas." 



B. H. C. 



A Crow-bar. — In Johnson's Dictionary the 

 explanation given of this word Is " piece of iron 

 used as a lever to force open doors, as the Latins 

 called a hook corvus." In Walters' English 

 and Welsh Dictionary, the first part of which was 

 published about the year 1770, this word is 

 printed " Croe-bar." Is It probable that the word 

 crow has been derived from the Camb.-Brlt. word 

 cro, a curve ? and that the name has been given 

 from the circumstance of one end of a crow-bar 

 being curved for the purpose of making it more 

 efl3.cient as a lever ? N. W. S. 



