Rotten Row and Stockwell Street.—­R.R., of Glasgow, inquires the etymology of these names (Vol. i., p. 441.).  The etymology of the first word possesses some interest, perhaps, at the present time, owing to the name of the site of the intended Exhibition from all Nations in Hyde Park.  I sent to the publishers of Glasgow Delineated, {236} which was printed at the University press in 1826, a contradiction of the usual origin of the name adopted in that city, showing the impossibility of the expression bearing any reference to the dissoluteness or immorality of the former residents, and also contradicting its having any thing to do with “rats,” or “rattons,” Scottice; although, in 1458, the “Vicus Rattonum” is the term actually used in the Archbishop of Glasgow’s chartulary.  My observations, which were published in a note, concluded as follows: 

“The name, however, may be also traced to a very remote and classic origin, although we are not aware that it has hitherto been condescended on.  In ancient Rome was what was called the Ratumena Porta, ’a nomine ejus appellata (says Gessner in his Latin Thesaurus) qui ludiero certamine quadrigis victor juvenis Veiis consternatis equis excussus Romae periit, qui equi feruntur non ante constitisse quam pervenirent in Capitolium.’  The same story is related by Pliny, from whom and other authors, it appears that the word Ratumena was then as proverbially applied to jockies as Jehu in our own days.  From the circumstance of the Rotten Row Port (of Glasgow) having stood at the west end of this street, and the Stable Green Port near the east end, which also led to the Archbishop’s castle, it is probably not only that it was the street through which processions would generally proceed, but that the port alluded to, and after it the street in question, were dignified by the more learned of our ancestors with the Roman name of which, or of the Latin Rota, the present appears a very natural corruption.”

I may here refer to Facciolati’s Dictionary, voce “Ratumena Porta,” as well as Gessner’s.

As to Stockwell, also a common name, it is obviously indicative of the particular kind of well at the street, by which the water was lifted not by a wheel, nor by a pump, nor a pulley, but by a beam poised on or formed by a large stock, or block of wood.

Lambda.

Hornbooks (Vol. ii., p. 167.).—­Mr. Timbs will find an account of hornbooks, with a woodcut of one of the time of Queen Elizabeth, in Mr. Halliwell’s Notices of Fugitive Tracts, printed by the Percy Society, 1849.  Your readers would confer a favour on Mr. Timbs and myself by the communication of any additional information.

R.

Passages from Shakspeare (Vol. ii., p. 135.).—­

  Ang. We are all frail.

  Isab. Else let my brother die,
  If not a feodary, but only he
  Owe, and succeed thy weakness.