Γ.
Early Instances of the World "News."—Without the slightest intention of re-opening the discussion as to whether the word "newes" be of native growth or imported, I would beg leave to suggest as a means of completing its history, that should any of the readers of "Notes and Queries," whose researches may lead amongst the authorities of the fifteenth century, meet with instances of the word in familiar use between A.D. 1400 and A.D. 1500, they would notify the same.
The earliest date of its colloquial use as yet recorded in "Notes and Queries," is A.D. 1513: on the other hand, the word, so far as I am aware, is nowhere used by Chaucer, although his near approach to it in the following lines is very remarkable:
"There is right now come into the toune a gest,
A Greek espie, and telleth newe things,
For which I come to tell you newe tidings."—Troilus and Creseide, b. ii. 1113.
After this, the transition to the word itself is so extremely easy, that it could not be far distant.
A. E. B.
Under the Rose.—It may interest the inquirers into the origin of this expression to know, that at Lullingston Castle in Kent, the residence of Sir Percival Dyke, there is in the hall an old picture, or painted carving (I forget which, as it is many years since I saw it), of a rose, some two feet in diameter, surrounded by an inscription, which, if I remember right, runs as follows, or nearly so:—
"Kentish true blue;