The brother of the person whose ingenuity has thus exerted itself, possessed a small property bordering on the aforesaid common.  But to understand my story, you must know that the peasantry of the west of England, imbibe a notion, whether erroneous or not, I am not learned enough to say, that if a person builds on waste lands, and is permitted to proceed uninterrupted by the Lord of the Manor, or any other person, until he has roofed and occupied it, or as they express it “made a smoke in it” that the builder has an indisputable right to it.  Now the man willing to act on this principle, set his wits to work and constructed a house on his brother’s property beforementioned, on a movable foundation, such as I am unable to describe; and when completed, he, in the course of one night launched it over the hedge fairly into the common, and the next morning found him busily employed in making the smoke that was, according to village laws, to establish him in his newly acquired habitation; and no doubt he would have continued quietly in the same place to this day, had not a neighbouring ’squire took it into his head to teach this commentator on the law, another version of its intricacies, and finally caused him to set his house a-going once more, which it did in the manner aforesaid, to a bit of land to which he had a more legal right, and where it now stands.

Wonderful as this relation may seem, its truth may be relied on, and any reader of the mirror, travelling, or having friends in that part of the country, may easily ascertain the truth of my statement.  The house at present stands near the highway leading from Sturminster to Sherborne, about five or six miles from the former, and six or seven from the latter.

RURIS.

Blandford, April 9, 1829.

* * * * *

ORIGIN OF SIGNS.—­CAT AND THE FIDDLE.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

No part of the history of civilized nations is involved in such deep obscurity as the origin and progress of their names.  I do not mean their names of men and women, the etymology of which are easy; for any stupid fellow can see with half an eye that Xisuthrus and Noah are one and the same person; and that Thoth can only be Hermes; nor is there any discernable difference between Pelagius and Morgan; tout cela va sans se dire, but when we come to account for the names of places or of signs, then indeed are we lost in a vast field of metaphysical disquisition and conjectural criticism.  The Spectator, your worthy predecessor, threw much light upon the science, but still he left it in its infancy.  To be sure, he traced the Bull and Mouth to the Boulogne Mouth, but I don’t remember that he made many other discoveries in this terra incognita.  However, he hinted that the roots of most of these old saws were to be found in the French language, or rather in the jargon spoken