It would be curious to collect examples of these menaces on tombstones, and I hope that other contributors will help to rescue any that exist in this or in other countries from oblivion.
Edward Charlton, M.D.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
DERIVATION OF "LAD" AND "LASS."
The derivation of the word lad has not yet been given, so far as I am aware; and the word lass is in the same predicament. Lad is undoubtedly of old usage in England, and in its archaic sense it has reference, not to age, as now, but to service or dependence; being applied, not to signify a youth or a boy, but a servant or inferior.
In Pinkerton's Poems from the Maitland MSS. is one, purporting to be the composition of Thomas of Ercildoune, which begins thus:
"When a man is made a kyng of a capped man."
After this line follow others of the same bearing, until we come to these: