MR. M. says, as one of his arguments, "It would appear that DR. TODD himself found the ב insurmountable, and therefore omitted it in his last Hebrew quotation."

This omission was the error of your printer, not mine; and I think any one who did not greatly need such an argument, must have seen that it was a mistake of the press. In my own defence I must say that I had not the advantage of being allowed to correct the press.

I do not deny that MR. M.'S interpretation is ingenious and clever, but it is for this reason especially that I object to it; Holy Scripture is too sacred a thing to be trifled with by ingenious conjectures: it is easy for a man of talent like MR. M. to gain a reputation with the unlearned by affecting to correct our English version on a "thorough knowledge of Hebrew words." This is a rock upon which many have foundered; the temptation is very great to a man like MR. M., who has been brought up with a verbal knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures: and it is in no unkindly spirit towards him, but very much the reverse, that I venture to give him this warning.

J. H. TODD.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Rotten Row.

—I cannot agree with any of the etymologies of this phrase, as given at p. 441. of Vol. i., p. 235. of Vol. ii., or at p. 40. of Vol. v. of "N. & Q.," because I have found the same applied to many places with which such etymologies could not, by any possibility, have the remotest connexion. In my examination of the Hundred Rolls or Acre Books of the various parishes in the hundred of Skirbeck in Lincolnshire, I found that a portion of several of those parishes was named Rotten Row: I will instance two, Freiston and Bennington. Upon consulting the best authorities I could meet with, I found that Camden derives the name from Rotteran, to muster; and we know that the Barons de Croun and their descendants, the Lords Rous, who formerly held the manor of Freiston, were in the habit of mustering their vassals under arms. "William Lord Ros, then residing at Ros Hall, Freiston, received a command to attend Edward II. at Coventry; and hastened to him with all his men at arms, divers Hoblers, and some foot soldiers accordingly." (See Dugdale's Baronage.) That the term Rotten Row has this military origin receives additional corroboration from the fact, that in Blount's Glossographia, 1670, the word ROT is defined to be "a term of war; six men (be they pikes or musketeers) make a Rot or file." Under the word BRIGADE in the same dictionary, I find it stated that "six men make a Rot, and three Rots of Pikes make a corporalship, but the musqueteers have four Rots to a corporalship. Nine Rots of pikes and twelve Rots of musqueteers, or 126 men, make a complete company." In Cole's Dictionary, 1685, I find "ROT, a file of six soldiers."

From these authorities I am led to infer that the term Rotten Row is a corruption of the name originally applied to the place where the feudal lord of a town or village held his Rother or muster, and where the Rots, into which his vassals were divided, assembled for the purpose of military exercise.

P. T.

Stoke Newington.