The MS. here mentioned was in the collection of the late Mr. J. Stafford Smith, one of the Organists of the Chapel Royal. At the sale of this gentleman's valuable library it passed, with many other treasures of a similar nature, into my possession, where it now remains.
Edward F. Rimbault.
Mr. Macaulay and Sir Archibald Alison in error.—How was it that Mr. Macaulay, in two editions of his History, placed the execution of Lord Russell on Tower Hill? Did it not take place in Lincoln's Inn Fields? And why does Sir A. Alison, in the volume of his History just published, speak of the children of Catherine of Arragon? and likewise inform us that Locke was expelled from Cambridge? Was he not expelled from the University of Oxford?
Abhba.
"Paid down upon the nail."—The origin of this phrase is thus stated in the Recollections of O'Keefe the dramatist:
"An ample piazza under the Exchange [in Limerick] was a thoroughfare: in the centre stood a pillar about four feet high, and upon it a circular plate of copper about three feet in diameter: this was called the nail, and on it was paid the earnest for any commercial bargains made; which was the origin of saying, 'Paid down upon the nail.'"
But perhaps the custom, of which Mr. O'Keefe speaks, was common to other ancient towns?
Abhba.
Corpulence a Crime.—Mr. Bruce has written, in his Classic and Historic Portraits, that the ancient Spartan paid as much attention to the rearing of men as the cattle dealers in modern England do to the breeding of cattle. They took charge of firmness and looseness of men's flesh; and regulated the degree of fatness to which it was lawful, in a free state, for any citizen to extend his body. Those who dared to grow too fat, or too soft for military exercise and the service of Sparta, were soundly whipped. In one particular instance, that of Nauclis, the son of Polytus, the offender was brought before the Ephori, and a meeting of the whole people of Sparta, at which his unlawful fatness was publicly exposed; and he was threatened with perpetual banishment if he did not bring his body within the regular Spartan compass, and give up his culpable mode of living; which was declared to be more worthy of an Ionian than a son of Lacedæmon.
W. W.