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s. i. MA*. 26, m j NO tES ANt) QUERIES.

247

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- >ation on family matters of only private interest affix their names and addresses to their queries, order that the answers may be addressed to icm direct.

"HILARY TERM." I am told there is in )enton, 'On the Epistles and Gospels,' a quotation from Dean Boys to the effect that howsoever there be some pleadings in the lourt of Conscience every day, yet the godly jeep Hilary Term all the year round." We lave not found the passage. Can one of your eaders supply the reference to Boys, or to ny other use of the phrase ?

J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

"HOAST": "WHOOST." The Northern word oast, "a cough," is well known. I find in ome dictionaries a vague statement that in i some English dialect this has the form whoost. j The nearest approach to this that I have found is in Miss Jackson's ' Shropshire Word- Book,' which has koost, or rather 'oost, a cough, "said of cattle." This is also the most southern instance that I have come across. Will readers of ' N. & Q.' tell us if the word is used any- ) where further south, and especially if the form lohoost can be located? The point is of Isome interest, because the Northern hoast j (known only f rom c. 1450) is of Norse origin, i whereas whoost, if it exists, appears to repre- I sent the native O.E. hwdsta.

J. A. H. MURRAY. I Oxford.

" HOBBY-HORSE." We want a contemporary quotation for this name, said to have been applied to the "dandy-horse" of 1819, which was a distant ancestor of the current bicycle. Will some reader of 'N. & Q.' furnish one 1 J. A. H. MURRAY.

Oxford.

AUTHOR OF POEM WANTED. Our little life we held in equipoise With struggles of t\yo opposite desires, The struggle of the instinct which enjoys And the far nobler struggle that aspires.

V. C.

" DAIN." This word is found in Dartnell nd Goddard's ' Wiltshire Words ' (1893), r here we are told that the word was formerly pplied mainly to infectious effluvia ; for xample : " He Ve a had the small-pox, and he dain be in his clothes still." The editors dd that the word is now used of very bad mells in general. I have evidence that the d is known in the sense of a " taint " in

Berkshire. Is the word still found in living use in any other parts of England ?

THE EDITOR OF THE 'ENGLISH DIALECT DICTIONARY. The Clarendon Press, Oxford.

HORACE WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO MADAME DU DEFFAND. Is anything known as to the present whereabouts of these letters? Quota- tions from them are given by Miss Berry in the form of notes to her edition of ' Madame du Deffand's Letters to Walpole ' (Longmans, London, 1810). The letters in question were those written between 1766 and 1774, the subsequent ones having been destroyed by Madame du Deffand at Walpole's request (' Correspondance de la Marquise du Deffand,' vol. i. p. ccxxxiv). Can it be ascertained whether they formed part of the Du Deffand papers purchased by Col. Dyce Sombre at the Strawberry Hill sale ? Mus.

OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE GOWNS. What are the origin and meaning of the two streamers which hang from the back of the armholes of Oxford undergraduates' gowns ? Are they peculiar to and a special distinction of Oxford ; and what is the technical name 1 S. & C.

"CASTLEREAGH." About the beginning of May, 1814, during Sir Robert Peel's secretary- ship for Ireland, an Irish place-hunter waited, on the Under-Secretary, William Gregory, with respect to an appointment in the patron- age of the Lord Lieutenant "the Chair- man's place of Gal way " which he said had been promised to him on the next vacancy. His claim was shown to be invalid ; and Gregory, reporting the affair in a letter to Peel, remarks :

"Finding the engagement not considered bind- ing on the present Viceroy, he began loading his castlereagh, which he will certainly fire at you."

The letter is printed at p. 271 of 'Mr. Gregory's Letter-Box,' which has just been published.

Lord Castlereagh was a voluble speaker, if his speeches were below standard, and was likened by the poet Moore to a pump (vide ante, p. 158). What object is here denoted by his name is uncertain. Can any of your readers inform me ? F. ADAMS.

106A, Albany Road, Camberwell.

WALES. Was a sceptre or mace for Wales ever borne at a coronation 1 Did George I. abolish the presidency of Wales when Ludlow Castle was dismantled ?

EVERARD GREEN, Rouge Dragon.

Heralds' College.