Now these lines, and a great many more which I cannot remember, as I have not the original edition, are to be found in an old volume of Blackwood's Magazine, in a review upon the poem. The poem, as published in the edition of Coleridge's Poems edited by D. and S. Coleridge (Moxon, 1852), does not contain these lines, and no notice is taken of the fact by the editors. Either Coleridge did or did not cancel the lines mentioned; if he did, can any of your readers inform me in which of his works this fact is mentioned? If he did not, then one of the most beautiful poems in the English language has been edited in a manner that no one, I trust, will imitate.
S. Y.
Beaten to a Mummy.—Whence comes this expression? It is used to signify, beaten so that form and feature are no longer distinguishable; whereas the immediate object of a mummy seems to be the preservation of the form and features of the deceased. Is not the phrase a corruption of beaten to a mammock, to a piece, to a scrap, to a fragment? And yet, in Marryatt's Pottery (Murray, 1850, p. 250.) is the following passage:
"Diodorus Siculus (Book V. ch. i.), in speaking of the usages of the inhabitants of the Balearic Isles, states that these people were in the habit of beating with clubs the bodies of the dead, which, thus rendered flexible, were deposited in vessels of earthenware."
The Gloucestershire peasants frequently use the word mammock, which they pronounce "mommock."
Robert Snow.
6. Chesterfield Street, May Fair.
Hanover Rats.—It is said that the native rat was extirpated from this country by the invading colonists from Hanover. What are the facts of this case, and where may the best account of this extermination of the natives be found? It is worth inquiring also, whether the aboriginal rat is now to be met with in any part of Great Britain. I should think that rat-catchers and farming folks could throw light on this interesting point of the British fauna.
Shirley Hibberd.
Pallant.—In the town of Chichester there are four streets, north, south, east, and west, to which the name of "Pallant" is attached.