In the same sense Clarendon speaks of "offering them quarter for their lives if they would give up the castle," i. e. offering them conditions for their lives on their performing their part of the bargain.
Again, in a passage of Swift, cited by Todd: "Mr. Wharton, who detected some hundred of the bishop's mistakes, meets with very ill quarter from his Lordship," i. e. meets with very ill conditions of treatment from him. Finally, to give quarter in the military sense is to give conditions absolutely, as opposed to the unmitigated exercise of the victor's power, and, as the most important of all conditions, to spare life.
H. W.
Sheriffs of Glamorganshire (Vol. iii., p. 186.).—The list of the Glamorganshire sheriffs here inquired for was not printed by Mr. Traherne, but by the Rev. H. H. Knight, M.A., of Neath, and of Nottage Court, in Glamorganshire: it is a little pamphlet in a paper cover.
Tewars.
"When the maggot bites" (Vol. viii., p. 244.).—A correspondent asks why a thing done on the spur of the moment is said to be done "when the maggot bites." It signifies rather doing a thing when the fancy takes one. When a person acts from no apparent motive in external circumstances, he is said to have a maggot in his head, to have a bee in his bonnet or, in French, "Avoir des rats dans la tête;" in Platt-Deutsch, to have a mouse-nest in his head, the eccentric behaviour being attributed to the influence of the internal irritation.
H. W.
Connexion between the Celtic and Latin Languages (Vol. viii., p. 174.).—Your correspondent M. will find much valuable information on this subject in a work entitled Thoughts on the Origin and Descent of the Gael, by James Grant, Esq., Advocate: Edinburgh, Constable & Co., 1814.
Francis John Scott.
Tewkesbury.