148 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 278. 



Derby for thirty years. The Debates were published after 

 his death. See Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. ilL p. 682., 

 for a pedigree of the family.] 



Lawrence Holden. — Who was Lawrence Holden, 

 author of Twenty-two Sermons on the most Interest- 

 ing and Important Subjects relative to the Christian 

 Faith* and Practice, published in 1755? He ap- 

 pears to have afterwards published An Exposition 

 of the Poetical Books of Scripture. He is described 

 in the title-page " of Maldon, in Essex." 



E. H. A. 



[Lawrence Holden was an Unitarian minister at Mal- 

 don, in Essex, bom 1710, died 1778. Besides his Sermons, 

 he published A Paraphrase, with Notes on the Books of 

 Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, London, 1763, 

 4 vols. 8vo. ; Ditto on Isaiah, 1776, 2 vols. 8vo. Mr. 

 Orme, in his Bibliotheca Biblica, speaking of the Para- 

 phrase, saj's, " This is one of the worst specimens in the 

 English language of paraphrastic interpretation." The 

 Monthli/ Review, O. S., vol. xxxi. p. 33., remarks, « To 

 what class of readers this performance will be useful or 

 agreeable we really know not." And the Rev. Thomas 

 Hartwell Home cautions the inexperienced student not 

 to purchase it on account of the very low price at which 

 it is now offered.] 



Dictionaries, Cyclopedias, SfC. — Can you in- 

 form me whether there has been any recent edi- 

 tion of Bailey's Dictionary ? If not, which is the 

 best amongst those recently published for general 

 reference, as to pronunciation, derivation, &c. ? 

 AIso,_ which is the best Cyclopasdia amongst those 

 now in vogue (excepting, of course, the re-issue 

 of the Britannica) for general information ? 



B. A. 



_ [The best edition of Bailey's Universal Etymological Dic- 

 tionary, by Dr. Scott, was published in 1772, fol. Among 

 those of more recent date. Dr. Richardson's mav be ad- 

 vantageously consulted for derivations ; whilst Dr. Ogil- 

 vie's will be found useful for general reference. The 

 best, and one of the most recent of the Cyclopaedias, is 

 Knight's English Cyclopcedia, in which the materials of 

 the Penny Cyclopcedia have been remodelled, so as to 

 adapt them to the existing state of knowledge. The 

 work, when completed, will consist of four divisions. Geo- 

 graphy, Natural History, Biography, Sciences and Arts.] 



" To te-he.'" — What is the meaning of the verb 

 "tote-he" in the following passage of Madame 

 D'Arblay's Diary, under the year 1779 ? — 



" She had not however been in the room half an in- 

 stant, ere my father came up to me ; and tapping me on 

 the shoulder, said: 'Fanny, here's a lady who wishes to 

 speak to j'ou.' 



" I curtsied in silence ; she too curtsied, and fixed her 

 eyes full in my face; and then, tapping me with her fan, 

 she cried: ' Come, come — you must not look grave upon 

 me.' 



" Upon this, J te-he'd ; she now looked at me vet more 

 eamestlj', and, after an odd silence, said abruptly: ' But 

 IS it true ?>"— Vol. i. p. 143,, edit. 1854. 



L. 



["To te-hee" is a cant word, meaning "to titter," to 

 laugh contemptuously or insolently. It will be found in 

 Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary.^ 



Allhallows. — While speaking of the word hal- 

 low as obsolete, I was told, as a proof of its being 

 so, that all churches originally dedicated to All- 

 hallows had had their dedication changed to All 

 Saints. Is this the case ? F. G. C. 



Marlborough. 



[Our correspondent has only to turn to the Index to 

 the Parishes in the Population Tables, 1852, and he will 

 find thirteen churches in England still named All- 

 hallows.] 



WAS PBUSSIC ACID OBTAINED FROM BULL's BLOOD 

 BT THE GREEKS ? 



(Vol. xi., pp. 12. 67.) 



The Greeks may possibly have known the 

 noxious quality of some preparations from plants, 

 as the cherry-laurel and bitter almond, the active 

 principle of which is hydrocyanic (prussic) acid. 

 (Dioscorides, i. 39. 50., iv. 147. &c. ; Pliny, N. H., 

 XV. 7. 23. &c.) Their priesthood may have used 

 something of the kind during the display of their 

 oracular powers. (" Pharmaceutica," by W. A. 

 Greenhill, M. D., in Smith's Diet. Antiq.) They 

 were certainly acquainted with many vegetable 

 and animal, and even with some mineral, poisons ; 

 such as were readily prepared from substances 

 easily obtainable. Such were the white and 

 black hellebore, described by Dioscorides ; the 

 Aconitum, or wolf's bane, mentioned also by Theo- 

 phrastus ; the Hyoscyamus, or henbane ; and the 

 Conium mactdatum, or common hemlock (used in 

 Athenian executions), which were probably abun- 

 dant on the waste and hilly parts of Greece. 

 Dioscorides especially, in his Alexipharmaca, has 

 given a great number of different poisons, the 

 principal and most easily identified of which are, 

 Cantharides ; Ephemeron (colchicum) ; Aconitum ; 

 Cicuta or Conium (hemlock) ; Hyoscyamus (hen- 

 bane) ; Papaveris liquor; Cerussa (white lead) 

 Fungi; Veratrum album (white hellebore); and 

 Elaterium. The Alexipharmaca appears to have 

 been pretty accurately transcribed, with some 

 additions, by Aetius, an eminent Greek medical 

 writer of the fifth or sixth century, in his Biblia 

 latrica Hekkaideka, in which (Tetr. iv. serm. i. 

 cap. 74.) is a section on poisoning by bull's blood, 

 the symptoms mentioned and treatment recom- 

 mended being almost word for word the same as 

 in Dioscorides. It is singular, however, that none 

 of the poisons treated of in the Alexipharmaca 

 appear to have prussic acid for their basis, and I 

 am inclined strongly to doubt whether preparations 

 containing that poison were generally or accu- 

 rately known to Greek physicians. But that they 

 knew how to prepare tlie acid from bull's blood, 

 or that, if they did, it should have been used in 

 preference to many other poisons far more readily 



