"Cleo. Let us to billiards. Come, Charmian.
Char. My arm is sore: best play with Mardian."
Ant. and Cleo., Act II. Sc. 5.
Can the game of billiards, as we now have it, boast of such high antiquity as to have been played by "the serpent of Old Nile;" or is the mention of it simply one of the great poet's anachronisms?
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
"Then comes the reckoning," &c.—Who is the author of the following well-known couplet?
"Then comes the reckoning when the feast is o'er,
The dreadful reckoning, when men smile no more."
A Constant Reader.
Giving the Sack.—Will any of your numerous readers kindly explain to me the origin of the phrases "to give any one the sack or bag," and "einem einen Korb geben"? We must all be aware of their acceptation.