—I wish to meet with the interesting and touching account of the conversion of William Hone, the compiler of the Every Day Book, and should be obliged to any one who would tell me where it is to be found.
E. V.
Hand giving the Blessing.
—What is the origin of holding up the two forefingers and thumb, and pressing down the third and little fingers of the right hand in giving "the blessing," as we see in figures of bishops, &c.? Is it a mystic allusion to the Trinity?
A. A. D.
4. Moray Place, Birkenhead.
Tinsell, a Meaning of.
—I wish to know if this word is still used by the country-people in the midland counties, and on the borders of North Wales, to denote fire-wood. In a Report dated in 1620, from a surveyor to the owner of an estate in Wales, near the borders of Shropshire, the following mention of it occurs:
"There is neither wood nor underwood on the said lands, but a few underwoods in the park of hasell, alders, withie, and thornes, and such like, which the tenants doe take and use for Tinsel as need requires."
The working people in Shropshire and Staffordshire still speak of tining a fire (pronounced teening). This is but a slight change in the Anglo-Saxon word tynan, to light a fire.