Jan. 26, 1850.
Tickhill, God help me.—Can any one tell why A Tickhill man, when asked where he comes from, says, "Tickhill, God help me." Is it because the people at Tickhill are famed for misery, as the neighbouring town of Blythe seems to have been so called from its jolly citizens?
R.F. JOHNSON.
Bishop Blaize.—I should be much obliged by any reference to information respecting Bishop Blaize, the Santo Biagio of Agrigentum, and patron saint of Ragusa. Butler says little but that he was bishop of Sebaste, in Armenia, the proximity of which place to Colchis appears to me suspicious. Wonderful and horrible tales are told of him; but I suspect his patronage of wool-combers is founded on much more ancient legends. His establishment at Agrigentum must have been previous to Christianity. I have a vague remembrance of some mention of him in Higgins's Anacalypsis, but I have not now access to that work. I wish some learned person would do for other countries what Blunt has partly done for Italy and Sicily; that is, show the connection between heathen and Christian customs, &c.
F.C.B.
Vox et præterea nihil.—Whence come these oft-quoted words? Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy (not having the book by me, I am unable to give a reference), quotes them as addressed by some one to the nightingale. Wordsworth addresses the cuckoo similarly, vol. ii. p. 81.:—
"O, cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?"
C.W.G.
Cromwell Relics.—In Noble's Memorials of the Protectorate House of Cromwell it is stated, in the Proofs and Illustrations, Letter N, that in 1784, there were dispersed in St. Ives a great number of swords, bearing the initials of the Protector upon them; and, further, that a large barn, which Oliver built there, was still standing, and went by the name of Cromwell's Barn; and that the farmer then renting the farm occupied by the Protector circa 1630-36, marked his sheep with the identical marking-irons which Oliver used, and which had O.C. upon them.