A. W. H.
320. Races in which Children are named after the Mothers.
—Will some correspondent favour me with a list of the races in which the children are named, or take their titles, or inherit property after their mothers, and not after their fathers; and where descent in any form is reckoned on the mother's side? I have a list of some, but I fear a very imperfect one; and all additions to it, with a memorandum of the authority on which the statement is made, will be very valuable to me. I wish the instances to be fetched as well from ancient as from modern nations.
THEOPHYLACT.
321. Foreign Ambassadors, Ministers, Envoys, and Residents from Foreign Courts.
—Will any of your readers inform me where there may be found the best, or any list of personages filling these diplomatic posts, between the 1st of King Henry VIII. and the end of the reign of King James II.?
S. E. G.
322. Critolaus and the Horatii and Curiatii.
—Has any writer on early Roman history noticed the extraordinary similarity, even in the minutest particulars, of the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii, followed by the murder of a sister of the former by her brother, for mourning for one of the opposite party, to whom she was betrothed, to the similar circumstances related of Critolaus the Tegean? The chances of two such transactions resembling each other so closely appear so very small, that there can be no doubt of one story being a copy of the other: but which was the original? I have no doubt the Roman historians adopted this tale from the Greeks, to diversify the barren pages of their early history. At all events, such a person as Critolaus undoubtedly existed, which is more than can be averred of the Roman hero. (See Encyc. Brit., art. "Critolaus.")
J. S. WARDEN.