1550. The Spread Eagle. 1550. The Swanne. 1550. The White Horse. 1550. In the Church Yard. 1551. The Lamb. 1551. The Rose. 1551. The Red Lion. 1553. The Holy Ghost. 1553. The Bell. 1553. At the West Door. 1556. The Hedgehog. 1558. The Sun. 1559. At the North Gate. 1559? The Cock. 1561. In the Church Yard. 1571. The White Horse. 1576. The Brazen Serpent. 1576? The Red Dragon. 1577. The Black Beare. 1577. At the S. West Door. 1578. The Three Lillies. 1579. The Parat. 1579. At the North Door. 1580? The Saint Austen. 1583. The Crane. Bookseller. Walter Lynne. John King. Andrew Hester. Richard Wyer. Abraham Veale. John Wight. Wyllyam Bonham. John Cawood. Robert Toy. John Kingston. William Seres. Anthony Kitson. James Burrel. John Turke. Rycharde Watkins. Lucas Harrison. Henry Sutton. Thomas Purfoote. William Norton. Thomas Hacket. William Williamson. H. Binneman. Humphrey Toye. Richard Johnes. Francis Cradock. John Harrison. Christopher Barker. Tho. Sturruppe. John Shepherd. Edward Aggas. Thomas Woodcock. Henry Disle. Richard Day. And. Maunsell. Edward White. Robert Redborne. Heugh Syngleton. Myles Jenyngs. Timothie Rider. Nich. Ling. Tobie Smith. Gerrard Dewes. Thomas Charde. With respect to the note of Dibdin, quoted by DR. SIMPSON (viii. p. 489), as to the signs descending by will from father to son, I think there is perhaps a mistake. The passage in Joan Woulfe's will, dated July 1, 1594 (Ames's Typograph. Antiq., 1785, p. 597), where she leaves to her son "The chapel house and the brazen serpent," did not mean, as is generally supposed, the house and the sign, but two independent houses-one known as the Chapel House and the other known as the Brazen Serpent. At the dissolution of monasteries Raynold Wolfe purchased from the king the chapel house and ground near St. Paul's, on which he built several houses. On the books that he printed he stamped the foreign device of the brazen serpent, and he adopted the same as the badge of his shop; but there was no copyright in the sign, and he did not leave it in his will, Jan. 9, 1573-4, to his wife, and she could not have left it to her son twenty years later. It was because any one might take a known sign and adopt it that the term "old" was often added to a sign to distinguish it from a new comer: thus the Black Bear and the Old (or original) Black Bear, in 1690. When a bookseller moved he sometimes, if his trade was good, took his sign with him; but not unfrequently he abandoned it, and adopted the sign of the house to which he moved. About the year 1650 Sam. Gellibrand changed from the sign of the Brazen Serpent to the Golden Ball, but I am unable to say whether this was a change of house or of sign only. There were curious changes at the time of the Restoration. Thus, Hardy's book on The Epistle of St. John, Part II., bears on the title-page, "and are to be sold at Joseph Cranford's shop, the Castle and Lion in St. Paul's Church Yard, 1659"; but at the end of the volume there is an advertisement of "books to be sold at Joseph Cranford's shop, at the sign of the King's Head and Bible in St. Paul's Church Yard." 66 In working out DR. SIMPSON's suggestion it would be necessary to note the earliest and latest publication of each bookseller and of each sign. In doing this it is not always safe to trust to a single date. For example, A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession bears on its title-page, London, Benj. Tooke, at the Sign of the Ship in St. Paul's Church Yard, 1648"; yet on reading the book it will be found to contain references to J. Boileau's Historia Confessionis Auricularis as a work just published. Now, Boileau's book was printed in Paris in 1683; hence it is clear that the date of B. Tooke, at the Ship in St. Paul's Churchyard, is a misprint; it should be 1684, and not 1648. The dates which are given in the preceding list are believed to be those in which books were first sold at the respective signs. Sutton, Surrey. EDWARD SOLLY. printed at London by Alexander Lacy for Garat Dewes, dwellyng in Poules church yard, at the East | end of the Church.” Greek versification, may I be allowed to refer CUTHBERT BEDE to Prof. Kennedy's Between Whiles (Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co.), p. 164 ? Ames says that Gerard Dewes (no doubt the I shall be happy to send the extract either to same person) kept a shop at the sign of the Swan," N. & Q." or to any reasonable number of corand used the following rebus :-"Two in a garret respondents. casting Dews at dice." Ames also says that Raynold Wolfe "settled his printing-office in Paul's Churchyard, and set up the sign of the Brasen Serpent." A further examination of the above-quoted work would yield a long list of early printers, and therefore booksellers, who dwelt under the shadow of the old cathedral, the first named being Henry Pepwell, who sold books at the sign of the Trinity, in Paul's Churchyard, about the year 1502. 42, Grove Road, N. GEORGE POTTER. LATIN VERSIONS OF FOOTE'S NONSENSE TALK (5th S. viii. 366.)There is at least one other version into Latin hexameters besides that quoted by CUTHBERT BEDE. There are two misprints, "equisse" for eguisse, and "Gargule" for Garyule. The following version into Thucydidean Greek lately appeared in the Cheltonian: Εισελθοῦσα δὲ ἐκείνη ἐς τὸν κῆπον, ὡς πέμμα ἀπὸ μήλων ποιήσουσα, λαχάνου φύλλον ἀπεψίλου. Ενταῦθα δὲ μεγάλη τις ἄρκτος κατὰ τὴν ἀγυιὰν ὁδοιποροῦσα ἐτύγχανεν, καὶ διὰ τῆς θυρίδος τὴν ῥῖνα ἐντεθεικυῖα, Τὸ τὴν κονίαν, ἔφη, μὴ ἐνεῖναι. Καὶ ὁ μὲν οὕτως ἐτελεύτησεν, ἡ δὲ, ὡς εἶχεν ἀνοίας, τῷ κουρεῖ ἐγήματα. Ἐκαλοῦντο δὲ ἐς τοὺς γάμους οἱ Πραγματο-κρινεῖς, καὶ οἱ Πικκανοὶ, καὶ οἱ Γωβλῖται, καὶ δὴ καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Πανιανδροῦμος ὁ Μέγας ὁ ἐπ' ἄκρου σμικρὸν φέρων κεράτιον. Επαιζον δὲ ἐνταῦθα πάντες Ληπτικό-δυνάμενο-κίνδα, ὥστε καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐμβάδων φέρεσθαι τὴν κόνιν τὴν πολεμικήν. The following version by a friend has lately come under my notice : βῆ δ' ἰμέναι κήπονδε γυνή σπεύδουσα πλακοῦν. τας ποίπνυε μήλοισιν, λαχάνοιο δὲ φύλλον ἀπέσπα ̇ Ενθα δ' ἀναίξαν ἄρκτου μέγα χρῆμα θυρέτρην ὦσε χολωσαμένη Τὸ δὲ μή τοι σμῆμα παρεῖναι Ρίμφα δέ μιν Μοῖρ ̓ ἔσχε, νέον λέχος ἔντυε κείνη κουρεῖ νυμφεύουσ', ἄτη δ' ἄρ' την φρενοδαλής ἔνθα δ' ἐπορσύναντο γάμον Γαριούλλιον ἔθνος, Γωβλίλιοι, Πικανοὶ, σὺ δ' ἅμ' αὐτοῖς ὄβριμον ἔρνος ησθα μέγας μεγάλως Πανίανδρος, κρωβύλον ἄρας κρατὸς ἀπ' ἀκροτάτου πεπυκασμένον· ἔνθα δὲ παίγμα λαμβανέμεν τὸν ἑταῖρον ἔην, εἶθ ̓ αὑτὸν ἁλῶναι· ένθα δ' ἴδοις μέγα θαῦμα· κόνις ὑπένερθε ποδοῖῖν ἔπτατο ἐκχυμένη, πολέμου βέλος ὀκρυόεντος. While on the subject of curiosities in Latin and . Will any correspondent oblige me privately with the meaning of "Cum jure atque cum signo," in Aul. Gell., xvii. 9 ? P. J. F. GANTILLON. 5, Fauconberg Terrace, Cheltenham. Without entering into any invidious criticism of the translations by the Eton Boy of Punch and Q. M. R., I think it may please CUTHBERT BEDE and those who have read what he has given to have another and, to my mind, a better translation: "Protenus illa foras sese projecit in hortum Inseruisse caput patulisqu: adstare fenestris- Jamque aderat studio ludorum accensa juventus This was given to me some time ago by a friend, who attributed it to “Tweed of Oriel.” But as a specimen of what can be done with most unlikely another. It was given to me some time ago by a words from which to render verse, let me give Cambridge man, who said it was by one of the Gepps" of Oxford. Foote's nonsense English need not be repeated; but this is a translation of a Yankee advertisement papers :which some years back went the round of all the "If you want a real fine unsophisticated family pill, try Dr. Rumbolt's liver encouraging, kidney-persuading, silent perambulator, twenty-seven in a box. This pill is as mild as a pet lamb, and as searching as a small-tooth comb. It don't go fooling about, but attends strictly to business, and is as certain for the middle of the night as an alarm clock." "Si forte ægrotis poscas quæ detur alumnis Ast eadem latebras ultro penetrabilis imas Dente velut tenui pecten eburnus adit. Hæc nunquam stultos iterat temeraria cursus, Sed studio semper res agit ipsa suas. Es index certam crepitat non rectius horam Quam jubet hæc mediâ surgere nocte toro." That the boy or man who can do such translations "need not despair of doing any piece" may, I think, be safely allowed. But the faculty is peculiar, and I doubt whether much advantage would be gained by setting such an exercise, unless it were done quite exceptionally to see whether any boy's mind had a turn for this peculiar work. GIBBES RIGAUD. Oxford. THE FIRST LOCAL NEWSPAPER (5th S. viii. 72, 140, 153, 179, 232, 330.)-Now that the question of the first establishment of the Stamford Mercury, and its right to rank as the earliest of our English provincial newspapers, has again been opened in the columns of “Ñ. & Q.,” allow me to produce a bit of contemporary evidence bearing on the subject. Thomas Tanner, afterwards Bp. of St. Asaph, in a letter to Browne Willis, the Bucks antiquary, dated Norwich, Aug. 1, 1706, says :— "The Norwich Newspapers are the principal support of our poor printer here, by which, with the Advertisements, he clears near 10s. every week, selling vast numbers to the country people. As far as I can learn this Burgess first began the printing news out of London; since I have seen the Bristol Postman, and I am told they print also now a weekly paper at Exeter." Francis Burges, who died at the early age of thirty in 1706, established his press, and probably his newspaper, at Norwich, in 1701; and, until we have something more authentically supported than the claim of either Stamford or Worcester, Norwich must be considered as the birthplace of the first provincial newspaper in England. MR. RAYNER says that he "only gave the first paper in each town," and considers that his list was correct with the exceptions of Manchester and York"; but here we see three more exceptions to his correctness. There may also be added to his list the St. Ives Post, of which vol. ii. No. 1, was printed by J. Fisher, Jan. 20, 1718. And here let me note what has escaped the observation of Mr. Worth in his History of Plymouth, that the above mentioned Browne Willis, in his Notitia Parliamentaria, vol. ii. p. 292, has recorded that "Here [i.e. at Plymouth, in 1716] are, by Reason of the great Concourse of People, two Printing Houses to advertise Things, both which subsist chiefly by publishing News-Papers." This interesting subject might be considerably enlarged upon; but as I hope ere long to submit my observations to your notice more fully, in publisher's cloth, I will conclude with an endorsement of MR. RAYNER'S remark, that "the subject is surrounded with difficulties." W. H. ALLNUTT. If MR. PATERSON will read the correspondence with reference to the age of the Stamford Mercury scattered through the volumes of "N. & Q.," I am certain that he will come to the conclusion that 1712 is the correct date of its commencement. The claim for 1695, as the year in which it was first printed, is of modern origin, and the manner in which the proprietors fell into the mistake has already been pointed out in "N. & Q." If the age of a newspaper is to be considered established beyond controversy, because the proprietors have affixed "1695" on the title-page, what is to prevent a newspaper proprietor from affixing "established 1595" upon his print? At all events, MR. PATERSON will have to throw over the Stamford Mercury in favour of the Worcester Journal, the latter print having recently affixed to its title-page "established 1690." There seems to be an animated competition amongst ancient local prints for supremacy as regards antiquity. Those who do not believe in these seventeenth-century dates simply ask for proof from those who have faith in them, and it is hardly necessary to add that no proof is ever forthcoming. In reply to MR. DUNN, I would state that my date of the origin of the Nottingham Weekly Courant was the correct one. This paper first appeared on Monday, Nov. 27, 1710. The austatement is excellent (see thority for this WILLIAM RAYNER. "N. & Q.," 3rd S. i. 479). Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill. correction of MR. RAYNER, in stating that the MR. DUNN must certainly be in error in his Nottingham Post was started in 1719. I have now before me a copy of the Nottingham Post, No. 42, July 11 to July 18, 1711. This seems to settle the matter. As neither the name of the is given by MR. DUNN, I bave not referred to any author nor the page of the History of Nottingham of the histories of that place. Worksop. ROBERT WHITE. A BOTANICAL PUZZLE (5th S. viii. 146, 294, 378.)-The subject of the sudden appearance and capricious distribution of plants is no doubt "a botanical puzzle" not to be easily explained. But when plants present themselves on ground newly turned up, it does not follow that the seeds have lain dormant for a great number of years. Plants are always trying to extend their bounds, and in this they are greatly assisted by winds. As an observant poet has said :— "How many plants-we call them weeds- And scatter wide their various seeds A particular soil or unoccupied spot will attract seeds blown about, and they will settle wherever they can find support. Thus old walls are covered by vegetation, and how soon a mass of rubbish abandoned to nature, or disused garden ground, gets covered with the goose-foot tribe and other weeds! Stonecrops, mouse-ear chickweeds, &c., often cover the roofs of houses, where they were never planted except by natural causes. Snapdragons and the red valerian are very common upon walls, and hawkweeds are sure to mount upon them. the thorn-apple to appear in the garden before the present year. On mentioning this curious fact to a nurseryman, he said that the Datura came up occasionally in his grounds, and had done so last year, though he had never cultivated it. Every cultivator of even the smallest garden must have had experience how "ill weeds grow apace," and, like the tares mentioned in Scripture as coming up with the wheat, really appear as if "an enemy had done this" spitefully. But natural causes by winds and tempests distribute the seeds of noxious weeds, however vexatious it is, and the industry of man must counteract the operations of nature. It is remarkable that years ago Mrs. Barbauld noticed the henbane as an intrusive garden weed, for, in one of her prose hymns, one of the advantages to be found in that happy celestial "home" she is there depicting for the human family is, that "the poisonous henbane will not grow among sweet flowers." Worcester. EDWIN LEES, F.L.S. With reference to MR. JACKSON's remarks on The henbane is a plant that loves manured or freshly turned-up soil, and it consequently appears in such places in what seems a wonderful manner. When walking in the gardens at Wellcombe, near Stratford-on-Avon, I noticed luxuriant plants of the henbane growing close to the finest flowers; and in the Worcester Arboretum I once saw henbane actually flourishing within cucumber frames, and in this latter case the seeds must certainly have been recently deposited, though not by the gardener. A clergyman told me that in his churchyard, in Herefordshire, some henbane had sprang up on mould thrown out of a grave, and he thought it must be from disentombed seed that had long lain in the ground; but it is far the spontaneous appearance of henbane, as demore probable that a natural dispersion of seed scribed by me, in North Lincolnshire, I may say from some plant not far away in an unnoticed that it has certainly never been cultivated in this place was the cause. No doubt, as every culti-district within the memory of man; nor is there, vator knows, seeds are very uncertain in their as far as I am aware, any tradition of its cultivagermination in gardens, and will not come up at tion for medicinal or any other purposes. The the time desired; but how long seeds may remain most curious circumstance connected with the under ground in a dormant state is not certainly erratic appearance of this plant is its occurrence known. I sowed a dozen or two of the seeds of in situations which have not been previously disvegetable marrow in my garden last spring, but turbed for very long periods of time, such as the only one came up, and I do not expect to see any sites of old banks and hedgerows, woodlands, and more of them. old pasture land, known to have been in pasture for many generations. It is probable, therefore, that the seed has lain dormant not for eight or ten years, but for several centuries. While on the subject of hedgerows, I may remark that many of cur fine old fences, particularly such as mark the boundaries of parishes, are of immense antiquity, and undoubtedly take us back to Saxon times. The rough banks, overgrown with blackthorn, wild-brier, and hazel, which formerly fringed so many of our hedges, making excellent cover for game, and sheltering hundreds of fieldfares and redwings in the winter, have now, to the sorrow of the lover of the picturesque, almost entirely disappeared under the modern system of farming. With them is fast disappearing from Lincolnshire the term mud-fang," by which they were desigJOHN CORDEAUX. Gardeners dislike old seeds as not likely to be productive; and, in experiments made at the Oxford Botanic Garden, the produce from seeds, commencing with one year's age and going on to twenty, disclosed the fact of decreasing fertility with every advancing year, so that seeds twenty years old would not germinate at all. But these experiments were made with dry seeds, and possibly in moist earth or under ground vitality may be longer preserved. nated. Other plants beside the henbane are intruders upon garden or upturned soil, and it does appear rather mysterious how they could come where they were not sown; but this is not to be arbitrarily determined without due consideration. Last summer a lady applied to me to look at her garden, where she had caused a number of seeds of the vegetable marrow to be sown, but in their place some tall spreading plants had sprung up which she did not know. I found that they were the "QUEM DEUS VULT PERDERE PRIUS DEMENTAT" thorn - apple (Datura stramonium). Now the (5th S. viii. 449.)-The Greek version of this proseeds of the Stramonium are so different from those verb was first pointed out by MR. T. J. BUCKTON of the vegetable marrow, that the one could not in "N. & Q.," 1st S. vii. 618; viii. 73. It is met possibly have been substituted for the other; and with in a Scholium on the Antigone of Sophocles, the lady assured me that she had never known | 11. 615-20, as an old Greek saying, whence Great Cotes. Sophocles confesses to have borrowed the thought. The Scholium is as follows :— μετὰ σοφίας γὰρ ὑπό τινος ἀόιδιμον καὶ κλεινὸν ἔπος πέφανται, ὅταν δ' ὁ δάιμων ἀνδρὶ πορσύνῃ κακὰ τὸν νοῦν ἔβλαψε πρῶτον ᾧ βουλεύεται. It is cited also by Athenagoras (In Legat., p. 106, ed. Oxon.). Erfurdt quotes, in addition, a fragment of Eschylus preserved by Plutarch (De Audiend. Poet., p. 63, ed. Oxon.; Euseb. præpar. Evang., lib. xiii. c. 3) and by Stobæus (p. 62, ed. Schow): Θεὸς μὲν αἰτίαν φύει βροτοῖς, ὅταν κακῶσαι δῶμα παμπήδην θέλῃ. after this lapse of time the information may still be of avail, that he will find it in Bentley's Miscellany for June, 1857, pp. 616-625. Your Philadelphia correspondent, MR. GASTON DE BERNEVAL, follows Lowndes in confounding the author of this book, Dr. William King, Principal King, Advocate of Doctors' Commons, &c., whose of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, with Dr. William humorous and satirical works annotated, and published (1776, 3 vols., 8vo.) by were edited, John Nichols of London, who prefaced them with an interesting memoir of the author; and of whom Pope makes Lintot say, in the letter to Lord Burlington in which he describes his journey to Oxford with the bookseller, "I remember Dr. And also four iambic lines by Lycurgus (c. Leo King could write verses in a tavern three hours cratem, p. 198, R.): ὅταν γὰρ ὀργὴ δαιμόνων βλάπτῃ τινά, τοῦτ ̓ αὐτὸ πρῶτον ἐξαφειρεῖται φρενών, τὸν νοῦν τὸν ἐσθλόν εις δὲ τὴν χειρω τρέπει γνώμην ἵν' ειδῆ, μηδὲν ὧν ἁμαρτάνει. With these lines Heyne compares a trochaic frag ment of Archilochus : ἤμπλακον καὶ που τιν ἄλλον ἥδ' ἄλη (wandering of mind) κιχήσατο (Heyne, Ad Iliad, ix. v. 116, vide Soph., Trag., Erfurdt, cum Not. Herm., 1830). MR. BUCKTON also pointed out that the Latin version is found first in the edition of Euripides by Barnes, and the Greek wrongly ascribed to Euripides, who, from the date, could not have been the author. I would remark that the original passage in the text of the Antigone of Sophocles (not the Scholiast's comment) is by far the more poetical embodiment of the idea, and the poet's conclusion very striking in the case of such a victim : πράσσει δ' ὀλιγοστὸν χρόνον ἐκτὸς ἄτας, which MR. BUCKTON, reading páσoev, translates, "But that he (the god) practises this a short time." In this, however, I venture to differ from him, and should read, with Hermann, páσσe, and translate it, "But he (the victim) fares for the briefest time apart from calamity," i.e. his prosperity is but short lived-in Greek phrase, soon κακῶς πράσσει. E. A. D. [All other kind correspondents on this quotation are referred to "N. & Q.," ist S. i. 351, 388, 407, 421, 476; ii. 317; 2nd S. i. 301; 3rd S. xii. 44, 99, 138, 294, 383, 471; 4th S. xi. 243. At the reference in the 2nd S., and at that in the 4th S., BIBLIOTHECAR. CHETHAM. has thrown a light on the age, if not authorship, of this saying which deserves to be kept in mind.] iii. 68, 247, 275, 319, 418, 438.)-I have but just "THE TOAST," BY DR. WILLIAM KING (5th S. perceived the query of H. S. A. as to the locus in quo of a magazine article this upon and most readable satire, entitled By-ways of very curious History: History of an Unreadable Book. hasten to inform him, with the hope that even I after he could not speak." Of the former Dr. William King, author of The Toast, we have the very interesting but neglected Anecdotes of his own Times (second edit., 1819, 8vo., pp. 252), edited by P. R. Duncan, LL.D., who died Nov. 12, the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxi., N.S., p. 122. 1863, and of whom an obituary will be found in numerous pieces in Latin prose and verse which My own copy of The Toast forms one of the make up the handsome quarto volume entitled Oxonienses olim Princip., and of which, according Opera Gul. King, LL.D., Aula B. M. V. apud to a statement of Dr. Bullock, the executor of Dr. King, only fifty copies had been preserved, and were dispersed among the old friends of the author. fetched ten guineas at the sale of Isaac Reed. Mine is a fine copy in half russia, uncut, and Birmingham. WILLIAM BATES. "THE MIDNIGHT OIL (5th S. viii. 491.)—The history of this proverb is to be seen in Plutarch. In his Life of Demosthenes, after speaking of his care in composition, he says: Pytheas in particular told him, 'That all his arguments "For this many of the orators ridiculed him, and smelled of the lamp.' Demosthenes retorted sharply upon him: Yes, indeed, but your lamp and mine, my friend, are not conscious to the same labours."-The Langhornes' Trans., vol. v. p. 273, Lond., 1819. Plutarch also notices the same anecdote in his treatise, Reip. Gerendæ Præcepta:— Pytheas said, 'That the speech of Demosthenes smelt of lamp-wicks, and sophistical subtlety, with keen arguments, and periods exactly framed according to rule and compass." Plut., Opp. Moral., Par., 1621, p. 802, E. The proverb, "Lucernam olet," is in the collection of Lond., 1639, p. 92). Erasmus, and appears in translation as "It smells of elbow-grease" (Paremiologia, by J. Clarke, The notion of the lamp, or oil, occurs in other phrases, as, "Aristophanis "Venusina lucerna." et Cleanthis lucerna "; Epicteti lychnulus"; ED. MARSHALL. This phrase first occurs, I think, in Gay's Trivia, |