of the king were marked with nicks on the bill, or wings, or neck. The keeper of the Royal swans used to go round once a year to examine the swans, and renew the nicks when required. This practice is still kept by the Lord Mayor once a year, and is now called Swan-Hopping. This is probably a corruption for SwanHooping, meaning to mark the swans with a ring cut for a mark. Some swans are said to have had a silver ring round their necks, marked with the Royal coronet. The swan with two necks is a corruption for the swan with two nicks.

PANIC.

It sometimes happened with the ancient Greeks, well disciplined and brave as their armies were, that a body of troops, without any attack being made or threatened, would take upon themselves to disperse and fly for their lives, leaving their camps and baggage, throwing away their arms, running over hill and dale for days and nights together, till their legs and their fright wore out together. As they were philosophers enough to know, that there would be no act without a motive, they excused themselves on these occasions by saying, that the god Pan, a shaggy and venerable person with goats' feet, had appeared to them, and that it consequently became them as pious persons to do their utmost to break their necks in a fright. Hence the phrase, “Panic Terror." Whether the god Pan appeared in the city of London at the great commercial panic of 1825 is not known; but it would be extremely difficult for many who were affected by terror, to find a better cause.

PARSON.

Selden says, though we write Parson differently, it is but Person, i. e., the individual person set apart for the service of such a church; and it is in Latin persona,—and personatus is, personage.

PERJURY.

The word Perjury is derived from perjurii,-false sworn. It is defined by Sir Edward Coke to be "a crime committed when a lawful oath is administered, in some judicial proceedings, to a person who swears wilfully, absolutely, and falsely, in a matter material to the issue or point in question; and subornation of perjury is the offence of procuring another to take such a false oath as constitutes perjury in the principal."

PIC-NICK.

This season (1802) says the Annual Register, has been marked by a new species of entertainment, common to the fashionable

world, called a Pic-nick supper. It consists of a variety of dishes. The subscribers to the entertainment have a bill of fare presented to them, with a number against each dish. The lot which he draws obliges him to furnish the dish marked against it; which he either takes with him in a carriage, or sends by a servant. The proper variety is preserved by the taste of the maître-d'hotel, who forms the bill of fare.

PORCELAIN.

Whitaker, in his account of the course of Hannibal over the Alps, says, that the term Porcelain comes from Puslain, which has a purple-coloured flower, like to the ancient China, which was always of that colour.—Vol. i. 8vo, 1794, p. 55.

POT-WALLER.

Pot-walloner, Pot-waller, or Pot-walloper, signifies one that boils his own pot; but not in the street, as has been wantonly reported. Each of these terms is derived from wealan, Saxon, to boil: but Pot-waller, seems to be most proper. It is observable that wall and wallop are provincial expressions of the like import at this day.

PURITAN.

The nickname of Puritans was at first devised by Sanders the Jesuit, to cast a reproach upon the persons and way of Reformers; to render them suspicious and odious to the State. The righteous hand of the Lord struck him with madness who invented the name: nor doth He delight in them that delight to take up a reproach against the innocent. (Kennett's Collections, Lansdown, No. 1024, p. 321, b.)

RACE.

The Arabs call their thorough-bred horses, Race-horses, or horses of a family, or Race, because they can trace their families or breeds as high as a Welsh pedigree. The Iman is at once both priest and civil magistrate, and it is equally his duty to register the birth of children and the foaling of brood mares.

On the sale of one of these horses, the Iman delivers a certificate of the pedigree, carefully copied from his register, to the buyer, of which an Arab is as proud as if it were his own pedigree. As these horses of race, or family, were in Europe bred only for the course, we evidently, in preserving the French expression, cheval de race, or race-horse, gave the name of Race to the course itself, being a contest between race-horses, from whence the expression became popular to denote any contest in running.

RADICAL.

The application of the term Radical arose about the year 1818, when the popular leaders, Henry Hunt, Major Cartwright, and others, sought, both in and out of Parliament, to obtain a Radical Reform in the Representative system: it never was applied to the Whigs as a party. Its origin may probably be traced to the writings of Lord Bolingbroke, who, in his Discourses on Parties, Let. 18, employs the term in its present accepted sense: he says, "Such a remedy might have wrought a radical cure of the evil that threatens our constitution," &c.-Richardson's Dictionary.

RINGLEADER.

The word ringleader is more generally used in a bad sense, namely, of a person that is at the head of a mob, a mustering, a riot, or any tumultuous assembly. How comes it to carry always this unfortunate sense? The lexicographers tell us, a ringleader is a person that leads the ring;" but this does not satisfy, for a ring does not always imply an illegal assembly. It is no doubt an expression derived from the Ring used in mutinies at sea, which the sailors call a Round Robin; for it seems the mutineers, on account of the certain punishment that would be sure to overtake the first movers in case the project should not take effect, generally sign their names in a ring; by which means it cannot possibly be known, upon a discovery of the plot, who it was that signed first, and consequently all must be deemed equally guilty; and yet the person that signs first, is literally the Ringleader. If this word be applied in a good sense, it may be taken from the Ring, a diversion formerly in use here in England.

ROSARY.

Richardson derives it from Fr. Rosaire; Ital. and Sp. Rosario; Low Lat. Rosarium, corona rosacea, a garland or chaplet of roses. The definition of it by the Abbé Prevost is this:-"It consists," he says, "of fifteen tens, said to be in honour of the fifteen mysteries in which the blessed Virgin bore a part. Five Joyous, viz., the annunciation, the visit to St. Elizabeth, the birth of our Saviour, the purification, and the disputation of Christ in the temple. Five Sorrowful: our Saviour's agony in the garden, his flagellation, crowning with thorns, bearing his cross, and crucifixion. Five Glorious: his resurrection, ascension, the descent of the Holy Ghost, his glorification in heaven, and the assumption of the Virgin herself."-Manuel Lexique. Nares, quoting this passage, adds, "This is good authority; but why each of the fives is multiplied by ten the Abbé does not explain; probably to make the chaplet of a sufficient length."

THE SWALLOW.

The term Swallow is derived from the French Hirondelle,* signifying indiscriminately voracious. The Swallow makes its first appearance in Great Britain early in spring; remains with us during summer, and disappears in autumn. The four species which inhabit this island, are also found during summer in almost every other region in Europe and Asia, where their manners and habits are nearly the same as in this country. In the more southern parts of the continent, they appear somewhat earlier than in England. The distinguishing marks of the swallow tribe are:-a small bill; a wide mouth; a head large in proportion to the bulk of the body, and somewhat flattish; a neck scarcely visible; a short, broad, and cloven tongue; a tail mostly forked; short legs; very long wings; and a rapid and continued flight. No subject has more engaged the naturalist in all ages than the brumal retreat of the swallow; neither is there any subject on which more various and contrary opinions have been entertained. Some have supposed that they retire at the approach of winter to the inmost recesses of rocks and mountains, and that they there remain in a torpid state till spring. Others have conjectured that these birds immerse themselves in the water at the approach of winter, and that they remain at the bottom in a state of torpidity, until they are again called forth by the influence of the vernal sun. Dr. Foster admits that there are several instances on record of their having been found in such situations, clustered together in great numbers, and that, on being brought before the fire, they have revived and flown away. But he thinks that few of the accounts were well authenticated; and that the celebrated John Hunter and Mr. Pearson clearly prove, from various experiments, that these birds cannot continue long under water without being drowned. The Doctor does not deny that swallows have occasionally been found under water; but he attributes their having been found in such situations to mere accident. As it is well known that, towards the latter end of autumn, swallows frequently roost by the sides of lakes and rivers he therefore supposes that a number of these birds had retired to roost on the banks of some shallow and muddy river at low tide; that they had been induced by the cold to creep among the reeds and rushes which might grow in the shallow parts of the river, and that while in that situation, driven into a state of torpidity by the cold, they had been overwhelmed, and perhaps washed into the current by the coming in of the tide. However, Dr. Forster clearly shows, that swallows are birds of passage, and produces the accounts of mariners, who had seen these birds many hundred miles out at sea, and on whose ships * Literally a marshy place, that absorbs or swallows what comes within its vortex.

they had alighted to rest, almost exhausted with fatigue and hunger.

SCEPTIC.

The word Scepticis from the Greek σnentoμаι, I examine. Pyrrho was the chief of sceptic philosophers, and was at first, as Apollodorus saith, a painter, then became the hearer of Driso, and at last the disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he followed into India to see the Gymnosophists. He pretended that men did nothing but by custom, that there was neither honesty nor dishonesty, justice nor injustice, good nor evil. He was very solitary, lived to be 90 years old, was highly esteemed in his country, and created Chief Priest. He lived in the time of Alexander the Great, about the year 300 B. C. His followers were called Pyrrhonians, besides which they were named the Ephectics and Aphoretics, but more generally Sceptics,-i. e., men who doubted.

This sect made their chiefest good to consist in a sedateness of mind, exempt from all passions; in regulating their opinions and moderating their passions, which they called Ataxia and Metriopathia; and in suspending their judgment in regard of good or evil, truth or falsehood, which they called Epochi. Sextus Empiricus, who lived in the second century under the Emperor Antonius Pius, wrote ten books against the Mathematicians, or Astrologers, and three of the Pyrrhonian opinion.

SENATOR.

The term Senator, says Maitland, is derived from the Saxon Senex, which has a similar meaning to the Saxon word Ealderman, alderman, or old man.

SI QUIS.

Si Quis, i. e., "If any one," was the first word of advertisements often published on the doors of St. Paul's Cathedral.

SINGING-BREAD.

Amongst the effects belonging to Sir John Fastolfe, one of the heroes of Agincourt (of which an inventory is given in the Archeologia, vol. xxi. p. 238), will be found in the chapel, "One box for syngyng brede, weyng 4 oz." To this item the following note is attached by the late Mr. Amyot: "Pain à chanter,' . e., the host or unleavened bread, consecrated by the priest singing. In Caxton's Doctrinal of Sapyence, there is a direction to the priest, that if in the host be any form of flesh, or other form than bread, he might not to use that host, but ought to sing again.' In Queen Elizabeth's injunctions it is ordered that the sacramental bread shall be 'of the same fineness and fashion, though somewhat