This narrative is utterly innocent of the wholesale, or of any execution of the unfortunate invaders; and, in truth, our Lord Deputies have too much to answer for, without throwing the barbarism of such a massacre upon one of them. Some colouring is, however, given to the charge by the writings of Smith, History of Kerry; Cox, Hibernia Anglicana; and even Leland, History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 322. The deviation of these Spaniards northwards can be, I think, accounted for by the discomfitures they sustained from the English and Dutch fleets, who so kept the seas east and south of England, as to make a circuit round the Orkney Islands, with a descent to the westward of Ireland, the most advisable, though as it proved, not the less dangerous line of return.
John D'Alton.
48. Summer Hill, Dublin.
Second Exhumation of King Arthur's Remains (Vol. v., p. 490.).—The details of the circumstances attending the first (I am not aware of any second) exhumation of these remains at Glastonbury in 1189, have been transmitted to us by Giraldus Cambrensis, who saw both the bones and the inscription, by the Monk of Glastonbury, and, briefly, by William of Malmesbury, all cotemporaries with the event. Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, 8vo. edit., 1823, vol. i. pp. 279-282., gives a full account, from these and other authorities, of this remarkable discovery.
Cowgill.
Etymology of Mushroom (Vol. iii., p. 166.).—Dr. Rimbault states that the earliest example with which he is acquainted of this word, being spelt mushrump, occurs in the following passage in Robert Southwell's Spirituall Poems, 1595:
"He that high growth on cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to growe."
I suppose that this word has been derived from Maesrhin, one of the names of the mushroom in Welsh. As the meanings of the word rhin are "a channel," "a virtue," "a secret," "a charm," none of which are applicable to a mushroom, I conjecture that it is a corruption of the word rhum (also spelt rhump), but I am unable to mention an instance of the word being spelt by any Welsh writer of ancient times. The etymology which I suggest is maesrhum; from maes, "a field," and rhum, "a thing which bulges out." This meaning very nearly resembles that of the French name of one kind of mushroom, champignon.
S. S. S. (2.)