Does any one of your readers know what became of the MSS. formerly in the possession of the above-named Thomas Astle, formerly Keeper of the Tower Records?  In Sir W. Burrell’s Sussex collections in the British Museum are copies of charters, “ex MSS. penes T. Aste,” with notices of curious seals appended, which I should be glad to be able to inspect.

E.V.

Stephen Eiton, or Eden’s “Acta Regis Edw.  II.”—­The interesting account of St. Thomas of Lancaster, with the appended queries (No. 12. p. 181.), reminds me of the work of Stephen Eiton or Eden, a canon-regular of Warter, in Yorkshire, entitled, “Acta Regis Edwardi iidi,” which is said still to remain in manuscript.  Where is it deposited?

T.J.

Dog Latin.—­Permit me also to ask, what is the origin of the expression “Dog Latin”?

T.J.

The Cuckoo—­the Welch Ambassador.—­In Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One, Act iv. sc. 5., Dampet says:—­

   “Why, thou rogue of universality, do I not know thee?  Thy
   sound is like the cuckoo, the Welch Embassador.”

And the editor of the continuation of Dodsley’s Collection remarks on the passage,—­

   “Why the cuckoo is called the Welch Embassador, I know not.”

{231}Perhaps some of your readers can explain why the cuckoo is so called.

G.

A recent Novel.—­Having lately met with an extremely rare little volume, the title of which runs thus:  “La prise d’un Seigneur Ecossois et de ses gens qui pilloient les navires pescheurs de France, ensemble le razement de leur fort et le retablissement d’un autre pour le service du Roi ... en la Nouvelle France ... par le sieur Malepart.  Rouen, le Boullenger, 1630. 12o. 24pp.”  I was reminded of a modern novel, the principal scenes of which are laid in an island inhabited by a British nobleman of high rank, who, having committed a political crime, had been reported dead, but was saved by singular circumstances, and led the life of a buccaneer.  Can any of your numerous readers be good enough to mention the title of the novel alluded to, which has escaped my memory?

ADOLPHUS.

Authorship of a Couplet.—­Can you help me to the authorship of the following lines?—­

   “Th’ unhappy have whole days, and those they choose;
    The happy have but hours, and those they lose.”

P.S.

Seal of Killigrew, and Genealogy of the Killigrew Family.—­“BURIENSIS” (No. 13. p. 204.) is informed that the arms on the seal at Sudbury are certainly those of a member of the old Cornish house of Killigrew.  These arms, impaled by those of Lower, occur on a monument at Llandulph, near Saltash, to the memory of Sir Nicholas Lower, and Elizabeth his wife, who died in 1638.  She was a daughter of Sir Henry Killegrewe, of London, and a near relative, I believe, of the Master of the Revels.