[Sangared, i. e. the chantry, or chanting, from the Saxon sangere, a singer.]
Salubrity of Hallsal, near Ormskirk, Lancashire.—Between the 19th of February and the 14th of
May, 1800, ten persons died in this parish whose ages, as recorded on their tombs in the order of their departure, were 74, 84, 37, 70, 84, 70, 72, 62, 80, 90. This year must have been a fatal one to old people. Can any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." tell anything about the season?
W. J.
Bootle.
[The beginning of the year 1800 was unusually severe; in February, ice covered the ground so completely, that people skaited through the streets and roads; and in March, easterly winds prevailed with extraordinary violence. For the verification of these facts, consult the Meteorological diaries in the Gentleman's Magazine of the above period.]
Athens.—What is the origin of the term "violet-crowned city," as applied to Athens? Macaulay uses the expression in his History of England, but does not state how it was acquired.
E. A. T.
[The ancient Greeks and Romans, at their festive entertainments, wore garlands of flowers, and the violet was the favourite of the Athenians, than whom no people were more devoted to mirth, conviviality, and sensual pleasure. Hence the epithet was also given to Venus, Κύπρις ἰοστέφανος, as in some verses recorded by Plutarch, in his Life of Solon. Aristophanes twice applies the word to his sybarite countrymen: Equites, v. 1323., and Acarn. i. 637.]
James Miller.—Who was Miller, mentioned by Warburton as a writer of farces about 1735?