Cid.
Postage System of the Romans.—Could any of your correspondents inform me where I may find a perfect account of the postal system of the Romans? We know that they must have had such a system, but I have forgotten the author who gives any description of it.
Ardelio.
Three Crowns and Sugar-loaf.—Passing through Franche (a village near Kidderminster in Worcestershire) the other day, I saw an inn called "The Three Crowns and Sugar-loaf." As there seems to me not the least connexion between a crown and a sugar-loaf, I send this to "N. & Q." in hopes of an explanation from some of its readers more skilled than myself in such matters.
Cid.
Helen MacGregor.—In Burke's Landed Gentry (Supplement, art. "MacGregor of Craigrostan and Inversnaid") this redoubted heroine is described as "a woman of agreeable temper and domestic habits, active and careful in the management of her family affairs." This is so directly opposed, not only to Scott's description, but to the generality of traditions about her, that, as Campbell says, "it makes the hair of one's literary faith stand on end." Helen was, very likely, a different person from what she afterwards became, ere the events happened that drove Rob Roy "to the hill-side to become a broken man;" but one can hardly imagine her, in her most happy days, to have been such a person as is above depicted—an amiable wife and clever housekeeper. The pen of a descendant is evident, in the partial description given of both husband and wife.
J. S. Warden.
Francis Grose the Antiquary.—Francis Grose, the distinguished antiquary, was Captain and Adjutant of the Surrey Militia, commanded by Col. Hodges, in which regiment he served for many years; but on some occasion, probably breach of discipline, he was brought to a general court-martial. The regiment formed part of the large encampment of 15,000 men on Cocksheath, near Maidstone, in 1778. I think the trial took place then, or within a year or two of that date; and should be thankful to any reader of "N. & Q." who would supply me with the precise date when the court-martial assembled?
Σς.
"King of Kings:" Bishop Andrews' Sermons.—From MS. Account of Fellows of Kings, compiled from 1750, A.D. 1583, Geffrey King, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Cambridge, first chaplain to Bancroft and James I., whether he or Thos. King, 1605, or James King, 1609? One of them began his sermon at St. James: "I, King of Kings, come to James the First and Sixth, nothing wavering."