know any instances of the English using this gender 

 of the sun. I have found the following : — 



" So it will be at that time with the sun ; for though 

 she be the brightest, and clearest creature, above all 

 others, yet, for all that, Christ with His glory and 

 majesty will obscure Aer." — Latimer's Works, Parker 

 Soc. edit. vol. ii. p. Si. 



" Not that the sun itself, of her substance, shall be 

 darkened; no, not so; for she shall give her liglit, but 

 it shall not be seen for this great light and clearness 

 wherein our Saviour shall appear." — (lb. p. 98.) 



Thos. Cox. 



Construe and translate. — In my school-days, 

 verbal renderinjr from Latin or Greek into Enjrlisli 

 was construing ; the same on paper was translating. 

 Whence this difference of phrase ? M. 



Men hut Children of a larger groivth. — Can you 

 give me the author of the following line ? 



" Men are but children of a large growth." 



E.G. 



Clerical Costume. — In the Diary of the Rev. 

 Giles Moore, rector of Hosted Keynes, in Sussex, 

 published in the first volume of the Sussex Ar- 

 chaeological Collections, there is the following 

 account of his dress : — 



" I went to Lewis and bought 4 yards of broad black 

 cloth at 16s. the yard, ai>d two yards and |^ of scarlet 

 serge for a waistcoat, 11*. If/., and j of an ounce of 

 scarlet silke, Is." 



and this appears to have been his regular dress. 

 Will any of your correspondents inform me whether 

 this scarlet serge waistcoat was commonly worn by 

 the clei'gy in those times, namely, in 1671 ? 



R. W. B. 



Ergh, Er, or Argh. — In Dr. Whitaker's His- 

 tory of Whalley, p. 37., ed. 1818, are the following 

 observations on the above word: — 



" This is a singular word, which occurs, however, 

 both to the north and south of the Ribble, though 

 much more trequently to the north. To the south, I 

 know not that it occurs, but in Angles-ark and Bret- 

 targli. To the north arc Battarghes, Krgh-holme, 

 Stras-ergh, Sir-evgh, Feiz-er, Goosen-ergh. In all the 

 Teutonic dialects I meet with notliing resembling this 

 word, excepting the Swedish Arf, terra (jvide Hire in 

 voce), which, it' the last letter be pronounced gutturiilly, 

 is precisely the same with argh." 



Can any of your readers give a more satisfactory 

 explanation of this local term ? T. W, 



Burnley, May 4. 1850. 



Burial Service. — During a conversation on the 

 various sanitary measures now projecting in the 

 metropolis, and particularly on the idea lately 

 started of re-introducing the ancient practice of 

 burning the bodies of the deceased, one of our 

 company remarked that the words " ashes to ashes," 



used in our present form of burial, would in such 

 a case be literally applicable ; and a question arose 

 why the word " ashes " should have been intro- 

 duced at all, and whether its introduction might 

 not have been owing to the actual cremation of the 

 funeral pyre at the burial of Gentile Christians? 

 AVe were none of us profound enough to quote or 

 produce any facts from the monuments and records 

 of tlie early converts to account for the expression ; 

 but 1 conceive it probable that a solution could be 

 readily given by some of your learned corre- 

 spondents. The burning of the dead does not 

 appear to be in itself an anti-christian c>€remony, 

 nor necessarily connected with Pagan idolatries, 

 and therefore might have been tolerated in the 

 case of Gentile believers like any other indifferent 

 usage. CiNis. 



Gaol Chaplains. — When were they first ap- 

 pointed ? Did the following advice of Latimer, 

 in a sermon before King Edward, in 1549, take 

 any effect ? 



" Oh, I would ye would resort to prisons I A com- 

 mendable thing in a Christian realm ; I would wish 

 there were curates of prisons, that we might say, the 

 ' curate of Newgate, the curate of the Fleet,' and I 

 would have them waged for their labour. It is a 

 holiday work to visit the prisoners, for they be kept 

 from sermons." — Vol. i. p. 180, 



Thos. Cox. 



Hanging out the Broom (Vol. i., p. 385.). — This 

 custom exists in the West of England, but is 

 oftener talked of than practised. It is jocularly 

 understood to indicate that the deserted inmate is 

 in want of a comjtanion, and is ready to receive the 

 visits of his friends. Can it be in any way analo- 

 gous to the custom of hoisting a broom at the 

 mast-head of a vessel which is to be disposed of? 



S. S. S. 



George Lord Goring, well known in history as 

 Colonel Goring and General Goring, until the 

 elevation of his father to the earldom of Norwich, 

 in Nov., 1644, is said by Lodge to have left Eng- 

 land in November, 1645, and after passing some time 

 in France, to have gone into the Netherlands, where 

 he obtained a commission as Lieutenant-Gene- 

 ral in the Spanish army. Lodge add.s, upon the 

 authority of Dugdale, that he closed his singular 

 life in that country, in the character of a Domini- 

 can friar, and his father surviving him, he never 

 became Earl of Norwich. A recent publication, 

 speaking of Lord Goring, says he carried his 

 genius, his courage, and his villainy to market on 

 the Continent, served under Spain, and finally 

 assumed the garb of a Dominican friar, and died 

 in a convent cell. 



Can any of your readers inform me ivhen and 

 where he died, and whether any particulars are 

 known respecting him after his retirement abroad, 



