L.B.L.

Smelling of the Lamp (No. 21. p. 335.).—­“X.” will find the expression [Greek:  Illuchnion ozein] attributed to Pytheas by Plutarch (Vit.  Demosth., c. 8.).

J.E.B.  MAYOR.

Anglo-Saxon MS. of Orosius (No. 20. p. 313.).—­It may gratify Mr. Singer to be informed that the Lauderdale MS., formerly in the library at Ham House, is now preserved, with several other {372} valuable manuscripts and books, in the library at Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, the seat of the Tollemache family.

M.

Golden Frog.—­Ingenious as is the suggestion of “R.R.” (No. 18. p. 282.), that Sir John Poley stuck a golden frog in his ear from his affection for tadpoles, I think “R.R.’s” “Rowley Poley” may be dismissed with the “gammon and spinach” of the amorous frog to which he alludes.

Conceiving that the origin of so singular a badge could hardly fail to be commemorated by some tradition in the family, I have made inquiry of one of Sir John Poley’s descendants, and I regret to hear from him that “they have no authentic tradition respecting it, but that they have always believed that it had some connection with the service Sir John rendered in the Low Countries, where he distinguished himself much by his military achievements.”  To the Low Countries, then, the land of frogs, we must turn for the solution of the enigma.

Gastras.

Cambridge, March 9.

Sword of Charles I.—­Mr. Planche inquires (No. 12. p. 183.), “When did the real sword of Charles the First’s time, which, but a few years back, hung at the side of that monarch’s equestrian figure at Charing Cross, disappear?”—­It disappeared about the time of the coronation of Her present Majesty, when some scaffolding was erected about the statue, which afforded great facilities for removing the rapier (for such it was); and I always understood it found its way, by some means or other, to the Museum, so called, of the notoriously frolicsome Captain D——­, where, in company with the wand of the Great Wizard of the North, and other well-known articles, it was carefully labelled and numbered, and a little account appended of the circumstances of its acquisition and removal.

John Street.

[Surely then Burke was right, and the “Age of Chivalry is past!”—­Otherwise the idea of disarming a statue would never have entered the head of any Man of Arms, even in his most frolicsome of moods.]

John Bull.—­Vertue MSS.—­I always fancied that the familiar name for our countrymen, about the origin of which “R.F.H.” inquires (No. 21. p. 336.), was adopted from Swift’s History of John Bull, first printed in 1712; but I have no authority for saying so.

If the Vertue MSS. alluded to (No. 20. p. 319.) were ever returned by Mr. Steevens to Dr. Rawlinson, they may be in the Bodleian Library, to which the Doctor left all his collections, including a large mass of papers purchased by him long after Pepys’ death, as he described it, “Thus et odores vendentibus.”