'And dar'st thou, minion,' quoth the queen, 'thus article to me?'
. . . . . . . . . .
With that she dashed her on the lips, so dyed double red:
Hard was the heart that gave the blow, soft were those lips that bled."
J. M. B.
Death-warnings in ancient Families (Vol. ix., pp. 55. 114. 150.).—
"As a Peaksman, and a long resident in the Isle of Man, Peveril was well acquainted with many a superstitious legend; and particularly with a belief, which attached to the powerful family of the Stanleys, for their peculiar demon, a Ban-shie, or female spirit, who was wont to shriek, 'Foreboding evil times;' and who was generally seen weeping and bemoaning herself before the death of any person of distinction belonging to the family."—Peveril of the Peak, vol. ii. p. 174.
J. M.
Oxford.
Poets Laureate (Vol. ii., p. 20.).—Your correspondent S. H. will find "an account of the origin, office, emoluments, and privileges of poet laureate" in a recent work entitled The Lives of the Poets Laureate, with an Introductory Essay on the Title and Office, by W. S. Austin, Jun., and J. Ralph (Richard Bentley, 1853).