Names of the Ferret.—I should be much obliged by any one of your readers informing me what peculiar names are given to the male and female ferret? Do they occur any where in any author? as by knowing how the words are spelt, we may arrive at their etymology.
T. Lawrence.
Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Colfabias.—Can any of your learned correspondents furnish the origin and meaning of this word? It was the name of the privy attached to the Priory of Holy Trinity in Dublin; and still is to be seen in old leases of that religious house (now Christ Church Cathedral), spelled sometimes as above, and other times coolfabioos.
The present dean and chapter are quite in the dark upon the subject. I hope you will be able to give us a little light from your general stock.
A Ch. Ch. Man.
Dublin.
School of the Heart.—This work consists of short poems similar in character and merit to Quarles's Emblems, and adorned with cuts of the same class. I have at hand none but modern editions, and in these the production is ascribed to Quarles. But Montgomery, in his Christian Poet, quotes the School of the Heart, without explanation, as the work of Thomas Harvey, 1647. Can any of your readers throw light on this matter?
S. T. D.
Milton and the Calves-head Club.—I quote the following from The Secret History of the Calves-head Club: or the Republican Unmasqu'd, 4to., 1703. The author is relating what was told him by "a certain active Whigg, who, in all other respects, was a man of probity enough."