Christina of Sweden had quite a mania for writing in her books.  In the library of the Roman College (at Rome) there are several books annotated by her, amongst others a {52} Quintus Curtius, in which, as it would appear, she criticises very freely the conduct of Alexander. “He reasons falsely in this case,” she writes on one page; and elsewhere, “I should have acted diametrically opposite; I should have pardoned;” and again, further on, “I should have exercised clemency;” an assertion, however, we may be permitted to doubt, when we consider what sort of clemency was exercised towards Monaldeschi.  Upon the fly-leaf of a Seneca (Elzevir), she has written, “Adversus virtutem possunt calamitates damna et injuriae quod adversus solem nebulae possunt.”  The library of the Convent of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem at Rome, possesses a copy of the Bibliotheca Hispanu, in the first volume of which the same princess has written on the subject of a book relating to her conversion:  [1] “Chi l’ha scritta, non lo sa; chi lo sa, non l’ha mai scritta.”

Lemontey has published some very curious Memoirs, which had been entirely written on the fly-leaves and margins of a missal by J. de Coligny, who died in 1686.

Racine, the French tragic poet, was also a great annotator of his books; the Bibliotheque National at Paris possesses a Euripides and Aristophanes from his library, the margins of which are covered with notes in Greek, Latin, and French.

The books which formerly belonged to La Monnoie are now recognizable by the anagram of his name. A Delio nomen, and also by some very curious notes on the fly-leaves and margins written in microscopic characters.

G.J.K.

[Footnote 1:  Conversion de la Reina de Suecia in Roma (1656).]

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ORIGIN OF WORD “GROG.”

Mr. Vaux writes as follows:—­Admiral Vernon was the first to require his men to drink their spirits mixed with water.  In bad weather he was in the habit of walking the deck in a rough grogram cloak, and thence had obtained the nickname of Old Grog in the Service.  This is, I believe, the origin of the name grog, applied originally to rum and water.  I find the same story repeated in a quaint little book, called Pulleyn’s Etymological Compendium.

[A.S. has communicated a similar explanation; and we are obliged to “An old LADY who reads for Pastime” for kindly furnishing us with a reference to a newly published American work, Lifts for the Lazy, where the origin of “Grog” is explained in the same manner.

    The foregoing was already in type when we received the following
    agreeable version of the same story.]

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ORIGIN OF WORD “GROG”—­ANCIENT ALMS-BASINS.