Feb. 10. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUElilES. 



113 



brings wine and bread in plentj'. A cool and moist April 

 fills ihe cellar and fattens the cow. A windy May makes 

 a fair year. He who mows in May will have neitlier fruit 

 nor hay. Midsummer rain spoils wine stock and grain. 

 In May an east-lying field is worth wain and oxen ; in 

 July, the oxen and the yoke. The first day of August, 

 the" first day of harvest. August rain gives honej', wine, 

 and safi"ron. August ripens, September gathers in. Au- 



fust bears the burthen, September the fruit. September 

 ries up wells or breaks down bridges. Preserve j'our 

 fodder in September, and your cow will fatten. In Oc- 

 tober dung your field, and the land its wealth shall yield. 

 On All Saints' Day there is snow on the ground ; on St. 

 Andrew's, the night is twice as long as day. He who 

 dungs his bailey well shall have fruit a hundred fold; 

 and if it has been a wet season there is nothing to fear. 

 No one thrives who godless drives. None in August 

 should over the land ; in December none over the sea. 

 Laziness is the key to poverty. The usurer's gold sits 

 down with him to table." 



Cjeykep. 



Spirit Rappivgs (Vol. ix., p. 200.). — 



" A writer giving an account of some very remarkable 

 'spiritual manifestations,' declares that he saw and ex- 

 perienced at the house of a neighbour, among other things, 

 the spirit of his grandfather, which rapped him on the 

 forehead with such force, 'that the sound could be heard 

 in every part of the room.' We should think," says the 

 Boston Post, " it very likely. There are heads which, as 

 is common with em()ty shells of all sorts, make capital 

 mediums of sound. His 'grandfather' could not have 

 made a better selection." 



w.w. 



Malta. 



The following extract from a work not likely to 

 fall into many hands, will, it is hoped, be accept- 

 able, and help to counteract fanaticism and lolly : 



" these are not to be set down — at least so it is to be 

 hoped — among the iiurmal and catholic superstitions in- 

 cident to humanity. They are nmch worse than the 

 worst form of the doctrine of materiality, 'i'hese aber- 

 rations betoken a perverse and prurient play of the ab- 

 normal fancy, groping for the very holy of holies in 

 kennels running with the most senseless and god-aban- 

 doned abominations. Our natural superstitions are bad 

 enough ; but thus to make a systematic business of 

 fatuity, imposture, and profanity, and to imagine all the 

 while that we are touching on the precincts of God's 

 spiritual kingdom, is unspeakably shocking. The horror 

 and disgrace of such proceedings were never even ap- 

 proaclied in the darkest days of heathenism and idolatry. 

 Ye who make shattered nerves and depraved sensations 

 the interpreters of truth, the keys which shall unlock the 

 gates of heaven, and open the secrets of futurity — ye who 

 inaugurate disease as the prophet of all wisdom, thus 

 making sin, death, and the devil the lords paramount of 

 creation — have ye bethought j-ourseives of the backward 

 and downward course which ye are running into the pit 

 of the bestial and the abhorred? Oh, ye miserable 

 mystics! when will ye know that all God's truths and all 

 man's blessings lie in the broad heath, in the trodden 

 ways, and in the laughing sunshine of the universe, and 

 that all intellect, all genius, is merelj' the power of seeing 

 wonders in common things." — Institutes of Metapliysic, 

 p. 22.) , by Professor Ferrier, of the University of St. An- 

 drew's, Edinburgh, 1854. 



J. Mackay. 



Oxford. 



The Schoolboy Formula (Vol. x., p. 124.). — 

 The following are used in the United States for 

 the selection of the tagger, before commencing a 

 game of tag. A boy is touched by one in the 

 middle of the ring at each word. The one last 

 touched goes out of the circle. The process is re- 

 commenced and continued uptil only one is left, 

 who is the first tagger. 



" Eeny, meeny, moany, mite, 



Butter, lather, boney, strike, 



Hair, bit, frost, neck, 



Harrico, barrico, we, wo, wack." 

 " Eeny, meeny, tipty, te, 



Teena, Dinah, Domine, 



Hocca, proach, Doinma, noach, 



Hi, pon, tus." 

 " One-ery, Two-ery, Hickory, Ann, 



Filliston, Follaston, Nicholas, John, 



Queeby, Quawby, Virgin, Mary, 



Singafum, Sangalum, Buck." 



Uneda. 

 Philadelphia. 



To ''thou" or to ''thee" (Vol. x., p. 61.).— 

 Thorpe was undoubtedly right, in a grammatical 

 point of view, in saying " to thou," but it is evi- 

 dent that Southey, in saying that some one "theed" 

 his neighbours, meant to give a good-humoured 

 rebuke to the Quakers for saying " thee " instead 

 of " thou." In this country, this corruption is 

 almost universal among the Society of Friends, 

 who say " Hoicz thee do ? " for " How dost thou 

 do ? " "I hope thee is well ? " " Will thee come 

 and take tea with us ? " 



Not one in a thousand is correct in this matter. 

 While making it a matter of cimscience not to use 

 the plural you for the singular thou, they have no 

 qualms about using the objective in place of the 

 nominative ; — swallowing a camel after straining 

 at a gnat. Unbda. 



Philadelphia. 



" As big as a parsorCs barn " (Vol. xi., p. 7.). — 

 The following remark in Mr. Huntington's Bank 

 of Faith has doubtless reference to the above 

 Dorsetshire saying (Mr. H.'s wife was a Dorset- 

 shire woman). Speaking jocosely of having made 

 their bed-room into a depository for the corn 

 gleaned by his wife, H. says : 



" So we slept defended with the staff of life, having all 

 our tithes in our bed-chamber, which, by the bye, I 

 believe was one of the smallest tithe barns in Christendom." 

 — Huntington's Bank of Faith, p. 48. (tenth edition), 

 London, 1822. 



William Pamplin. 



"The Village Lawyer" (Vol. ix., p. 493.).— 

 The printed edition of this farce bears date 1795, 

 and is stated in the Biographia Dramatica to be 

 pirated. It is of French origin, and the author 

 never printed it ; and it is thought that Mr. Col- 

 man purchased the copyright. E. H. B. 



Demerara. 



