Language of Queen Mary’s Days.—­In the first vol. of Evelyn’s Diary (the last edition) I find the following notice:—­

“18th, Went to Beverley, a large town with two churches, St. John’s and St. Mary’s, not much inferior to the best of our cathedrals.  Here a very old woman showed us the monuments, and being above 100 years of age, spake the language of Queen Mary’s days, in whose time she was born; she was widow of a sexton, who had belonged to the church a hundred years.”

Will any of your readers inform me what was the language spoken in Queen Mary’s days, and what peculiarity distinguished it from the language used in Evelyn’s days?

A learned author has suggested, that the difference arose from the slow progress in social improvement in the North of England, caused by the difficulty of communication with the court and its refinements.  I am still anxious to ascertain what the difference was.

FRA. MEWBURN.

Darlington.

Vault Interments.—­I shall be very glad of any information as to the origin and date of the practice of depositing coffins in vaults, and whether this custom obtains in any other country than our own.

WALTER LEWIS.

Edward Street, Portman Square.

Archbishop Williams’ Persecutor, R.K.—­Any information will be thankfully received of the ancestors, collaterals, or descendants, of the notorious R.K.—­the unprincipled persecutor of Archbp.  Williams, mentioned in Fuller’s Church Hist., B. xi. cent. 17.; and in Hacket’s Life of the Archbishop (abridgment), p. 190.

F.K.

The Sun feminine in English.—­It has been often remarked, that the northern nations made the sun to be feminine.[3] Do any of your readers know any instances of the English using this gender of the sun?  I have found the following:—­

“So it will be at that time with the sun; for though she be the brightest and clearest creature, above all others, yet, for all that Christ with His glory and majesty will obscure her.”—­Latimer’s Works, Parker Soc. edit. vol. ii. p. 54.

“Not that the sun itself, of her substance, shall be darkened; no, not so; for she shall give her light, but it shall not be seen for this great light and clearness wherein our Saviour shall appear.”—­(Ib. p. 98.)

THOS.  COX.

[Footnote 3:  See Latham’s English Language, 2nd edition, p. 211]

Construe and translate.—­In my school-days, verbal rendering from Latin or Greek into English was construing; the same on paper was translating.  Whence this difference of phrase?

M.

Men but Children of a larger growth.—­Can you give one the author of the following line?

  “Men are but children of a larger growth.”

R.G.

Clerical Costume.—­In the Diary of the Rev. Giles Moore, rector of Hosted Keynes, in Sussex, published in the first volume of the Sussex Archaeological Collections, there is the following account of his dress:—­