A FEATHER IN HIS CAP.

In the British Museum are two MSS. descriptive of Hungary in 1598, in which the writer says of the inhabitants: "It hath been an auncient custome amongst them, that none should weare a fether but he who had killed a Turk, to whome onlie yt was lawfull to shew the number of his slaine enemyes by the number of fethers in his cappe." Does not this passage explain the phrase, “That will be a feather in his cap?"

GONE TO JERICHO.

In the Patent Rolls of the manor of Blackmore, near Colchester, occurs (18th February, 1528-9) an entry of a tenement called Jericho, reported to have been one of the king's pleasure-houses. Hence, when the luxurious monarch was missing, the cant phrase among the courtiers was that "he was gone to Jericho."-CAMDEN, Miscellany, vol. iii.

MIND YOUR P's AND Q's.

The most probable derivation of this phrase is, that it comes from the printing office, and rose from the fact that the p's and q's in Roman type vary but slightly in form, and that when reversed, as they necessarily are in type, they are easily confounded by young compositors. Another derivation refers it to the "scot" written up in the ale-house, where P and Q were used to designate pints and quarts. Still another derivation refers it to the toupées and queues of olden times.

CURIOUS ORIGIN OF SOME WORDS.

Dr. Latham, in his Grammar, gives curious instances of the misspelling of words arising from their sonnd, which error has led to the production not only of a form, but of a meaning very different from the original. Thus, Dent de lion, originally referring to the root, has been corrupted into dandylion, having reference to the flaunting aspect of the flower. Contre-dance has become country dance; Shamefastness, originally referring to the attire, has been converted into shamefacedness, and applied to the countenance. Cap-a-piê has produced apple-pie order. Folio capo, Italian for the first sized sheet, has produced foolscap. Asparagus, sparrowgrass, Girasole artichoke, Jerusalem artichoke. Massaniello, the name of the famous Neapolitan rebel and the hero of the opera, is nothing but Mas-Aniello, a corruption of the true name Thomas Aniello. Hogoumont, famous in the annals of Waterloo, is properly Chateau Goumont.

LIVERY, AND LIVERY STABLES.

Livery, i. e. delivery, is from the French livrer, to deliver. Chaucer has, "the conisance of my livery to all my servants delivered." Spenser, in his work on Ireland, says: "What livery is, we, by common use in England, know well enough, namely, that it is allowance of horse-meate, as they commonly use the word in stabling as to keepe horses at livery; the which word, I guess, is derived of livering or delivering forth their nightly food. So, in great houses, the livery is said to be served up for all night, that is, their evening's allowance for drinke. And livery is also called the upper weede which a serving-man weareth, so called (as I suppose) for that it was delivered and taken from him at pleasure."

ORIGIN OF FARM.

Spelman derives this word from the Saxon fearme or feorme, which signifies victus, food or provision; as the tenants and countrypeople anciently paid their rents in victuals and other necessaries of life. Hence a farm was originally a place which supplied its owner or lord with provisions. The word ferme is also French, and a farm is probably so called from its being a firm or fixed possession of the land by one who labors on it.

ERRONEOUS BIBLE QUOTATIONS.

The apple is a fruit never connected in Scripture with the fall of man; Eve was not Adam's helpmate, but merely a help meet for him. Absalom's long hair, of which he was proud, and which has consequently so often served "to point a moral and adorn a tale," had nothing to do with his death, his head, and not the hair upon it, having been caught in the boughs of the tree. (2 Sam. xviii. 9.)

The phrase, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," is by many considered as being in the Bible. It is, however, from Sterne's "Sentimental Journey; " though in a collection of proverbs published in 1594 we find "Dieu mesure le vent á la brebis tondue," while Herbert in his Jacula Prudentum has, "To a close shorn sheep God ges wind by measure."

FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS.

There are many phrases and quotations which are as "familiar in our mouths as household words," whose origin is either unknown or misconceived, and without encroaching upon the sphere of the works devoted to this purpose, we may mention a few of them :

"There is death in the pot," is from the Bible, 2 Kings iv. 40. "Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided," is spoken of Saul and Jonathan, 2 Samuel i. 23. “A man after his own heart," 1 Samuel xiii. 14." "The apple of his eye," Deut. xix. 21. "A still small voice," 1 Kings xix. 12. "Escaped with the skin of my teeth," Job xix. 20. "That mine adversary had written a book," Job xxi. 35. "Spreading himself like a green bay-tree," Psalm xxxvii. 35. "Hanged our harps upon the willows," Psalm cxxxvii. 2. "Riches certainly make (not take, as it is often quoted) themselves wings," Proverbs xxiii. 5. "Heap coals of fire upon his head,” Ibid. xxv. 22. "No new thing under the sun," Ecclesiastes i. 9. "Of making many books there is no end," Ibid. xii. 12. "Peace, peace, when there is no peace" (made famous by Patrick Henry), Jeremiah viii. 11. "My name is Legion," Mark v. 9. "To kick against the pricks," Acts ix. 5. "Make a virtue of necessity," Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. "All that glisters is not gold," usually quoted, "All is not gold that glitters," Merchant of Venice. "Screw your courage to the sticking place" (not point), Macbeth. "Make assurance doubly sure," Ibid. Hang out our banners on the outward (not outer) walls," Ibid. "Keep the word of promise to our (not the) ear but break it to our hope," Ibid. “It is an ill wind turns none to good,” usually quoted, "It's an ill wind that blows no one any good," Thomas Tasser, 1580. "Christmas comes but once a year," Ibid. "Look, ere thou leap," Ibid. ; and "look before you, ere you leap," Hudibras, commonly quoted, "Look, before you leap." "Out of minde as soon as out of sight," usually quoted, "Out of sight, out of mind," Lord Brooke. "What though the field be lost, all is not lost," Milton. "Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen," Ibid. "Necessity, the tyrant's plea," Ibid. "That old man, eloquent," Ibid. "Peace hath her victories," Ibid. "Though this may be play to you, 'tis death to us," Roger L'Estrange, 1704. "All cry and no

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wool" (not little wool), Hudibras. "Count their chickens ere (not before) they're hatched," Ibid. "Through thick and thin," Dryden. "When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war," usually quoted, "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war," Nathaniel Lee, 1692. "Of two evils, I have chose the least," Prior. "Richard is himself again," Colley Cibber. "Classic ground," Addison. "As clear as a whistle," Byron, 1763. "A good hater," Johnsoniana. "A fellow feeling makes one (not us) wondrous kind." "My name is Norval," John Home, 1808. "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs," Goldsmith. "Not much the worse for wear " (not none

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the worse), Cowper. "What will Mrs. Grundy say," Thomas Morton 66 No pent up Utica contracts your powers," Jonathan M. Sewall. “Hath given hostages to fortune," Bacon. "His (God's) image cut in ebony," Thomas Fuller. "Wise and masterly inactivity," Mackintosh, in 1791, though generally attributed to Randolph. "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens" (not countrymen), resolutions presented to House of Representatives, Dec., 1799. Prepared by Gen. Henry Lee. "Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute," Charles C. Pinckney. "The Almighty Dollar," Washington Irving. "As good as a play," King Charles, when in Parliament, attending the discussion of Lord Ross's Divorce Bill. "Selling a bargain," is in Love's Labour Lost. "Fast and loose," Ibid. “Pumping a man," Ottway's Venice Preserved. "Go snacks," Pope's prologue to Satires. "In the wrong box," Fox's Martyrs. "To lamm in the sense of to heal, King and no King, by Beaumont and Fletcher." The hackneyed newspaper Latin quotation, "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis," is not found in any classic or Latin author. The nearest approach to it was, "Omnia mutantur, &c.," and this is found in Borbonius, a German writer of the middle ages.

"Smelling of the lamp " is to be found in Plutarch, and is there attributed to Pytheas. "A little bird told me," comes from Ecclesiastes x. 20. "for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."

He that fights and runs away,

May live to fight another day.

These lines, usually ascribed to Hudibras, are really much older. They are to be found in a book published in 1656. The same idea is however expressed in a couplet published in 1542, while one of the few fragments of Menander, the Greek writer, that have been preserved, embodies the same idea in a single line. The couplet in Hudibras is,

For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.

"Hell is paved with good intentions," though found in Johnson and Herbert, was obviously in their day a proverbial expression. Walter Scott ascribes it to "some stern old divine."

There's a good time coming, is an expression used by Sir Walter Scott in Rob Roy, and has doubtless, for a long time, been a familiar saying in Scotland.

Eripuit cælo fulmon, sceptrumque tyrannis, was a line upon

Franklin written by Turgot, the minister of Louis XVI. It is, however, merely a modification of a line by Cardinal Polignac, Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phaboque sagittas, which in turn was taken from a line of Marcus Manilius, who says of Epicurus Eripuitque Jovi fulmen viresque Tonanti.

Vox populi, Vox Dei. The origin of this familiar phrase is not known, but it is quoted as a proverb by William of Malmesbury, who lived in the early part of the twelfth century.

Ultima ratio regum. This motto was engraved on the French cannon by order of Louis XIV.

Whistling girls and crowing hens

Always come to some bad end.

In one of the curious Chinese books recently translated and published in Paris, this proverb occurs in substantially the same words. It is also an injunction of the Chinese priesthood, and a carefully observed household custom, to kill immediately every hen that crows, as a preventive against the misfortune which the circumstanco is supposed to indicate. The same practice prevails throughout many portions of the United States.