Bath, April 18.
Criston (Vol. iii., p. 278.).—There is a small village in Somersetshire called Christon, about five miles N.W. of Axbridge.
C. I. R.
Tradesmen's Signs (Vol. iii., p. 224.).—In the delightful little volume on Chaucer, in Knight's shilling series, entitled Pictures of English Life, the author has the following on the Tabard, at p. 19.:—
"The sign and its supports were removed in 1776, when all such characteristic features of the streets of London in the olden time, disappeared in obedience to a parliamentary edict for their destruction."
It would appear, however, by the subsequent quotation from Brand's Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 359., that the edict above referred to was not carried into execution against all signs; or that, if so, it was soon repealed:—
"Lord Thurlow, in his speech for postponing the further reading of the Surgeons' Incorporation Bill, July 17th, 1797, stated 'that by a statute still in force, the barbers and surgeons were each to use a pole.'"
R. W. E.
Cor. Chr. Coll., Cambridge.
Emendation of a Passage in Virgil (Vol. iii., p. 237.).—The emendation of Scriblerus is certainly objectionable, and by no means satisfactory, for these reasons:—1st. "Ac sunt in spatio" is by no means elegant Latin, which "addunt se in spatia" is; for the word "addunt" is constantly used in the same way elsewhere.