C. J.
Minor Queries.
"The Village Lawyer."—Can you inform me who is the author of that very popular farce, The Village Lawyer? It was first acted about the year 1787. It has been ascribed to Mr. Macready, the father of Mr. W. C. Macready, the eminent tragedian. The real author, however, is said to have been a dissenting minister in Dublin, and I would be obliged to any of your readers who could give me his name.
Sigma.
Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge.—In a note in the first volume of Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of Scotland, she remarks that Bourchier, Earl of Essex, "was near of kin to the royal family, being grand-nephew to Richard, Duke of York, father of Edward IV., but did not share the blood of the heiress of March, Jane Mortimer." I quote from memory, not having the book at hand; but allowing that Jane for Anne may be a slip of the pen, or a mistake of the press, where did Miss Strickland discover any second marriage of Richard, Earl of Cambridge? All pedigrees of the royal family that I have seen agree in giving him only one wife, and in expressly stating her to be mother to Isabel, Countess of Essex.
J. S. Warden.
Highland Regiment.-Can any of your Gaelic or military correspondents inform me whether it is at present the custom for the officers in the Highland regiments to wear a dirk in addition to the broadsword? Also whether the Highland regiments were ever armed with broadswords, and
whether their drill is different to that of the other troops of the line? I have somewhere heard it said that the 28th (an English regiment) were once armed with swords, whence their name of "The Slashers?" Is this the real origin of the name? and if not, what is? I should also like to know the origin of the custom of wearing undress white shell jackets, which are now worn by the Highlanders?
Arthur.