es 
Aprit 27. 1850.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 421 | 
of the adoption of the new style in England in 
1752. The daily course of lessons used to begin, 
St. Matthew, in January; the collects, epistles, 
and gospels, with those for Advent. M. 
Oxford. 
Paying through the Nose (No. 21. p. 335.).—I 
have always understood this to be merely a dege- 
nerated pronunciation of the last word. Paying 
through the noose gives the idea so exactly, that, as 
far as the etymology goes, it is explanatory enough. 
But whether that reading has an historical origin 
may be another question. It scarcely seems to 
need one. C.W.H. 
Quem Deus vult perdere, &c. (No. 22. p. 351.). 
— The correct reading is, “ Quem Jupiter vult per- 
dere, dementat prius.” See Duport’s Gnomologia 
Homerica, p. 282. (Cantab. 1660). Athenagoras 
quotes Greek lines, and renders them in Latin 
(p. 121. Oxon. 1682) : 
« At demon homini quum struit aliquid malum, 
Pervertit illi primitus mentem suam.” 
The word “dementat” is not to be met with, I 
believe, in the works of any real classical author. 
Butler has employed the idea in part 3. canto 2. 
line 565. of Hudibras : 
“ Like men condemned to thunderbolts, 
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts.” 
CAIs: 
Shrew (No. 24. p. 381.).—The word, I appre- 
hend, means sharp. The mouse, which is not the 
field-mouse, as Halliwell states, but an animal of a 
different order of quadrupeds, has a very sharp 
snout. Shrewd means sharp generally. Its bad 
sense is only incidental. They seem connected 
with scratch; screw ; shrags, the ends of sticks or 
furze (Halliwell); to shred (A.-S., screadan, 
but which must be a secondary form of the verb.) 
That the shrew-mouse is called in Latin sorez, 
seems to be an accidental coincidence. That is 
said to be derived from fat. The French have 
confounded the two, and give the name souris to 
the common mouse, but not to the shrew-mouse. 
I protest, for one, against admitting that Broc 
is derived from broc, persecution, which of course 
is a participle from break. We say “ to badger” 
for to annoy, to teaze. I suppose two centuries 
hence will think the name of the animal is derived 
from that verb, and not the verb fromit. It means 
also, in A.-S., equus vilis, a horse that is worn out 
or “ broken down.” C. B. 
Zenobia (No. 24, p. 383.).— Zenobia is said to 
be “gente Judea,” in Hoffman's Lexicon Uni- 
versale, and Facciolati, ed. Bailey, Appendix, voc. 
Zenobia, M. 
Oxford. 
Cromwell's Estates (No. 24. p.389.).—There is 
| Woolaston, in Gloucestershire, four miles from 
as it does now, with the Book of Genesis and of | 
Chepstow, chiefly belonging now to the Duke of 
Beaufort. C. B. 
Vor et preterea Nihil (No. 16. p. 247., and 
No. 24. p. 387.).— This saying is to be found in 
Plutarch’s Laconic Apophthegms (AropGéypara 
Aakévixa), Plutarchi Opera Moralia, ed. Dan. 
Wyttenbach, vol. i. p. 649. 
Philemon Holland has “turned it into English” 
thus :— 
“ Another [Laconian] having plucked all the feathers 
off from a nightingale, and seeing what a little body 
it had: ‘Surely,’ quoth he, ‘thou art all voice, and 
nothing else.’” —Plutarch’s Morals, fol. 1603. p. 470. 
WBE. 
Law of Horses.—The following is from Oli- 
phant’s Law of Horses, §c., p. 75. Will any of 
your readers kindly tell me whether the view is 
correct ? 
“Tt is said in Southerne v. Howe (2 Rol. Rep. 5.), St 
home vend chivall que est lame, null action gist peur ceo, 
mes caveat emptor: low jzo vend chivall que ad null oculus 
la null action gist ; autrement lou il ad un counterfeit 
faux et bright eye.” “If a man sell a horse which is 
lame, no action lies for that, but caveat emptor; and 
when [I sell a horse that has no eye, there no action 
lies ; otherwise where he has a counterfeit, false, and 
bright eye.” 
Thus it appears that a distinction is here made 
between a horse having zo eye at all, and having 
a counterfeit, false, or bright one. And probably 
by bright eye is meant glass eye, or gutta serena ; 
and the words “counterfeit” and “false” may be 
an attempt of the reporter to explain an expres- 
sion which he did not understand. Because put- 
ting a false eye into a horse is far in advance of 
the sharpest practices of the present day, or of any 
former period. 
Note.— Gutta Serena, commonly called glass- 
eye, is a species of blindness ; the pupil is unusually 
dilated ; it is immovable, bright, and glassy. 
G. H. Hewir Ovipnant. 
April 16. 1850. 
Christ's Hospital.—In reply to “Nemo” (No. 20. 
p- 318 ), a cotemporary of the eminent Blues there 
enumerated, informs him, that although he has not 
a perfect recollection of the ballads then popular 
at Christ’s Hospital, yet “Nemo” may be pleased to 
learn, that on making search at the Society of An- 
tiquaries for Robin Hood Ballads, he found in a folio 
volume of Broadsides, &c.; one of much interest 
and considerable length in relation to that school. 
The Ballad must also be rare, as it is not among 
those in the two large volumes which have been 
for many years in the British Museum, nor is it 
in the three volumes of Roxburgh Ballads recently 
purchased for that noble library. 
