"BLUESTONE POISON (6th S. v. 348). Bluestone is a common name for sulphate of copper or blue vitriol in various parts of Scotland. I have heard it frequently used by artisans and labourers in Edinburgh. The meaning the witness intended to convey in the case quoted by MR. BLACK was that the article referred to was not genuine whiskey, but a deleterious liquid, supposed to be adulterated largely with bluestone, or vitriol, and which the man very properly designated as poison. A whiskey which was at one time (and perhaps is still) sold in some parts of America was made from this substance, and known as forty rod, because it was said that a few glasses of it would kill a man before he had walked forty rods. JOHN MACKAY.

Herriesdale.

Your correspondent has evidently not been in the colonies, or he would have had no occasion to put this query. It is a custom there among the proprietors of "grog shanties" to first of all reduce their spirits by a copious addition of water, and then to bring up the strength again by the addition of bluestone (sulphate of copper). I need hardly say that this most diabolical system of adulteration is extremely hurtful. I fancy it was my fate once to experience the effects of this concoction; for I well remember travelling from Auckland to Coromandel in a small steamer, and asking for a glass of whiskey. I drank it, and-shall never forget the consequences. I believe the practice is not unknown in this country.

F. A. B.

MERMAIDS (6th S. v. 365).—The rib of a mermaid is preserved in the vicar's library at Denchworth, Berks, and I quote the following from a scarce pamphlet, entitled Supplement to the Denchworth Annual, 1875:

"This library contains also a curiosity in the shape of a bone, bearing on one side the following inscription: This is a rib of a Mermaid which was brought to Bristoll, from Angola, by......of Portugale, who were taken prisoners in the......times, 1631. [Two words are illegible.] On the other side is the following: The gift of Mr. Martin, son of Dr. Martin, of Redland Court, near Bristoll, to the Reverend Mr. Ralph Kedden, Vicar of Denchworth, 1693.' It is really the rib of a manati (Trichecus manatus Senegalensis), a cetaceous herbivorous mammal, called also sea-cow, siren, triton, or mermaid. This animal is found near the mouths of rivers on the west coast of Africa; there is a similar species on the east coast of America; and both are somewhat like the dugong, which is found in the Indian Ocean. The manati is 15 ft. long, and has breasts and hand-like paws, with which it nourishes and carries its young while it comes out of the water to pasture, being amphibious."

Long Burton, Sherborne.

C. H. MAYO.

OLD HOUSES WITH SECRET CHAMBERS (5th S. xii. 248, 312; 6th S. ii. 12, 117, 295, 433, 523; iii. 96; iv. 116, 217; v. 397).-Corruptio optimi pessima est. The following story is a good instance

of the "base uses "to which these excellent contrivances might be put :

"At Bishop's Middleham a man died with the reputation of a water-drinker; and it was discovered that he had killed himself by secret drunkenness. There was a Roman Catholic hiding-place in the house, the verted it into a cellar, and the quantity of brandy which entrance to which was from his bed-room; he conhe had consumed was ascertained."-Southey's Commonplace Book, fourth series, 354. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. Library, Claremont, Hastings.

JOHN MOORE, BISHOP OF NORWICH (6th S. v. 228, 391).-If either of your correspondents could inform me where I can see the will of the bishop, I should esteem it a favour.

JAMES ROBERT Brown. "MALTE MONEY" (6th S. v. 88, 195, 397).On pulling down an old house in this neighbourhood (Lincolnshire), I observed what appeared to be a very large coffee mill attached to a beam. The carpenter told me that it is a malt mill. They were formerly to be found in most farmhouses, where they made their own malt and crushed it in this mill. In times when malt was taxed they thus evaded paying duty. E. LEATON BLENKINSOPP.

THE PARSLOW FAMILY (6th S. v. 288, 435).— "Mr. Nicholas Parslow and Mrs. Ellinor Bellew

were married 24 Sept. 1565" (Braunton, Devon, Parish Register). J. L. V.

THE DICEYS' CHAP-BOOKS (6th S. v. 369).-The mysterious "st" upon the imprint of these books, and others of the same description, simply means that they are stereotyped, and may be had in any quantity by pedlars, being never out of print." ALFRED WALLIS.

Derby.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTed (1a S. xii. 204; 6th S. v. 399).—

"Qui jacet in terra," &c. It may not be without interest to note a remarkable application of this line. In D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, article "Charles the First," a story is told, on the authority of "a French writer," that when Bellicore, the French ambassador, announced to Charles the secret decision of his enemies to put him to death, "entreating him, at the same time, to save himself by a calmly answered him with this line from an old Latin vessel, which he could instantly prepare, the king poet-Qui procumbit humi, non habet unde cadat'He who lies prostrate on the earth need not fear to fall."

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. Notes from the Muniments of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, from the Twelfth to the Seventeenth Century. By W. D. Macray, M.A., F.S.A. (Parker & Co.) THE authorities of Magdalen College have published a small volume which is calculated to be of much interest to the students of English antiquity. The notice of their charters has already appeared in the reports of the Historical MSS. Commission, but these, however valuable for reference, are from their size inconvenient for common use. The value of the Magdalen documents will be much increased by this smaller publication, which also goes over some points which could not so well appear in the report. It will afford in itself an excellent precedent, which may be followed in other cases by those who have the charge of such interesting records. From the locality of the college it naturally is most concerned with Oxford life and history, and such of our correspondents as take an interest in these will find fresh material for their researches. Will they inform us whether there is any anticipation of the present system of education at Cambridge in the "Aula Puellarum," the "Mayden Halle," which is mentioned at p. 34? But from the wide extent over which the college estates are spread, the interest of their documents is by no means confined to Oxford itself. Half the counties in England are more or less noticed in the charters.

It will be seen from a lawsuit respecting tithes between the convent of Sele and the rector of Findon that an ecclesiastical suit was no cheap amusement in the thirteenth century, and that even then it was able "to drag its slow length along." There is a list of preReformation clergy, pp. 39-82, with some others in the "Addenda," which is likely to furnish fresh names for our parochial histories, to which so much interest now attaches. In the list of surnames there is a good note that the saunterer has his name from being a "eans terre," a "lackland," and not from having once been a pilgrim to "La Sainte Terre " (p. 97). There are notices of the manners of our countrymen in Rich. Stelewoman and Rich. Thousand pound, the forerunner of our millionaires; while the personal habits which attract notice are seen in John le Scriveyn, Rich. le Oyselur, or Fowlere, John le Cok, and the personal peculiarities or special character in Will, cum Barba, John Littelbodi, Hugh Stepsofte, John Styfleg, and Rob. Makeblithe. There are others upon which we may venture to anticipate the possibility of some future queries. At pp. 131-5 there are fac similes of some signatures, among which we notice that in the unique letter of Cecily of York, the mother of Edward IV. We might easily extend these remarks, for the college has done good service to those who are interested, as we are, in these subjects.

The History of the Parishes of Sherburn and Cawood, with Notices of Wistow, Saxton, Towton, &c. Second edition. By W. Wheater. (Longmans.)

WE are informed that this edition contains much more matter than the previous one. As a local history it is still very imperfect. Documents from common printed books are given at great length, but very little research seems to have been made among manuscripts. The references to authorities are seldom given, and when we have them they come before us in a manner which sometimes renders them nearly useless. The chief value of the book consists in the monumental inscriptions and blazonry of coats of arms which it contains. There is also a plate of an old half-timbered house at Wistow, which we are glad to have as a memorial of a class of buildings which is now being rapidly swept away. Mr. Wheater has evidently read Carlyle or his imitators, and has injured his style thereby to such an extent as to render some of his pages almost unintelligible. He did not get from Mr. Carlyle his painful habit of quoting poetry. A verse now and then, when it comes in aptly lights up a dull paragraph; but here we have these scraps not singly or in couples, but by the dozen and the score. As to whether authors should quote verse or not is perhaps a matter of taste; but it is no matter of taste, but one of simple justice, that when a poet is quoted the words should be given as he wrote them. Mr. Wheater has forgotten this, and as he evidently thinks that he can improve upon his predecessors he is not sparing of emendation. This is the form which stanza xxxii. of Lord Macaulay's Horatius assumes under Mr. Wheater's editorship. We print the altered words in italic type; the punctuation is also his :

"Then, none were for a party,

But all were for the State;
The rich man loved the poor man,
And the poor man loved the great.
The lands were fairly portioned
They were neither bought nor sold
For the Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old."

This surpasses in the way of improvement anything we remember to have seen except the "Dear brother Jim' which a certain editor inserted in Wordsworth's We are Seven.

Jottings on some of the Objects of Interest in the Stonehenge Excursion. By Edward T. Stevens, F.S.A. (Salisbury, Brown & Co.)

THERE is nothing that we have made greater progress in of late days than the manner in which we construct our guide-books. If any one wishes for evidence of this let him take unto himself a bundle of old guides published twenty or thirty years ago, and endeavour to read them. He will find the feat well nigh impossible. Written for the most part by men very imperfectly furnished with language, they showed an absolute ignorance of the plainest facts of history. Of course any knowledge of such recondite matters as architecture, geology, or botany was not to be thought of. The better examples of the guide-book of our own day are the production of men thoroughly qualified by education and habits for the task. It has been said that no one should venture on a guide-book unless he is prepared, should need be, to write an exhaustive history of the places he describes. Whether this rule should be made absolute in all cases we are not sure; but it is so in the instance before us. Every page shows that if Mr. Stevens had chosen to give us not a book for the pocket but a folio for the library, he has at hand full information for doing so. So very much has been written about Stonehenge that it would be rash to assume that we have examined all the literature on the