When I brew and when I bake,
I'll give you a figgy cake."
Against is used like the classical adversùm, in the sense of towards or meeting. I have heard, both in Devonshire and in Ireland, the expression to send against, that is, to send to meet, a person, &c.
The foregoing words and expressions are probably provincialisms rather than Devonianisms, good old English forms of expression; as are, indeed, many of the so-called Hibernicisms.
Pilm, Farroll.—What is the derivation of pilm=dust, so frequently heard in Devon, and its derivatives, pilmy, dusty: it pilmeth? The cover of a book is there called the farroll; what is the derivation of this word?
J. M. B.
Tunbridge Wells.
THE POEMS OF ROWLEY.
The tests propounded by Mr. Keightley (Vol. vii. p. 160.) with reference to the authenticity of the poems of Rowley, namely the use of "its," and the absence of the feminine rhyme in e, furnish additional proof, if any were wanting, that Chatterton was the author of those extraordinary productions. Another test often insisted upon is the occurrence, in those poems, of borrowed thoughts—borrowed from poets of a date posterior to that of their pretended origin. Of this there is one instance which seems to have escaped the notice of Chatterton's numerous annotators. It occurs at the commencement of The Tournament, in the line,—