In conclusion, permit me to cite Southey versus Catlin:—­“That country,” says the author of Madoc “has now been fully explored; and wherever Madoc may have settled, it is now certain that no Welsh Indians are to be found upon any branches of the Missouri” (Preface, note written in 1815).

Since I wrote the above, I have met with a work, by Mr. George Jones, entitled The History of Ancient America anterior to the Time of Columbus, vol. i.:  “The Tyrian AEra.”  In the second, not yet published, he promises to give “The Introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere by the Apostle St. Thomas.”

T.I.

Mistake in Gibbon.—­Those of your readers, who are, like myself, occasional verifiers of references, will perhaps thank me for pointing out a false reference, that I have just discovered in one of Gibbon’s notes: 

    “Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these tumultuary
    votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated, or
    rather chanted, by the whole body.”—­Hist.  August. p. 52.

See Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, chap. 4, note {342} under marginal lemma, “The memory of Commodus declared infamous.”

These “tumultuary votes” are recorded, not by Capitolinus, but by AElius Lampridius, in his Life of Commodus.  Vide Historiae Augustae Scriptores.  AElii Lampridii Commodus Antoninus, capita 18, 19.

Capitolinus wrote the life of his immediate successor, Pertinax; hence perhaps the mistake, “Egregio in corpore naevus!” Let those who wish to know what passion really is, read the tiger-like yells of the Roman senate in Lampridius!

C. Forbes.

Temple, Feb. 27.

Jew’s Harp.—­The late Mr. Douce always maintained that the proper name of this instrument was the Jaw’s Harp, and that the Jews had no special concern with either its invention or its use.

J.H.M.

Havior.—­The word “havior” is probably of a hybrid character; partly of Anglo-Saxo, and partly of British origin.  If so, the first syllable is obvious enough, “half” being generally pronounced as if the liquid were considered an evanescent quantity, “ha’f, heif, hav’,” &c., and “iwrch” is the British word for a roe-buck.  Dropping the guttural termination, therefore, and writing “ior” instead of “iwrch,” we have the significant designation of the animal described by Lord Braybrooke, whose flesh, like that of the capon, may afford a convenient variety among the delicacies of the season, if well cooked according to the recondite mysteries of the gastronomic art.

Hypomagirus.

Trinity College, Oxford, Feb 14.

N.B.  “Heifer” has already been explained as “heif-ker, half-cre,”
A.-S., “anner,” Br.