until just as a division is about to take place, when he invariably
orders them to withdraw. When a member wishes to exclude strangers he
addresses the Speaker, saying, "I think, Sir, I see a stranger or
strangers in the house," whereupon the Speaker instantly directs
strangers to withdraw. The Speaker issues his order in these
words:--"Strangers must withdraw."

C. Ross.

_Strangers in the House of Commons_.--As a rider to the notice of CH. in
"NOTES AND QUERIES," it may be well to quote for correction the
following remarks in a clever article in the last _Edinburgh Review_, on
Mr. Lewis' _Authority in Matters of Opinion_. The Reviewer says (p.
547.):--

"_This practice_ (viz., of publishing the debates in the House of
Commons) _which, &c., is not merely unprotected by law--it is positively
illegal_. Even the presence of auditors is a violation of the standing
orders of the House."

ED. S. JACKSON.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

_High Spirits considered a Presage of impending Calamity or Death_:--

1. "How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act v. Sc. 3.

2. "C'etait le jour de Noel [1759]. Je m'etais leve d'assez bonne heure,
et avec une humeur plus gaie que de coutume. Dans les idees de vieille
femme, cela presage toujours quelque chose do triste.... Pour cette fois
pourtunt le hasard justifia la croyance."--_Memoires de J. Casanova_,
vol. iii p. 29.

3. "Upon Saturday last ... the Duke did rise up, in a well-disposed
humour, out of his bed, and cut a caper or two.... Lieutenant Felton
made a thrust with a common tenpenny knife, over Fryer's arm at the
Duke, which lighted so fatally, that he slit his heart in two, leaving
the knife sticking in the body."--_Death of Duke of Buckingham_; Howell.
_Fam. Letters_, Aug. 5, 1628.

4. "On this fatal evening [Feb. 20, 1435], the revels of the court were
kept up to a late hour ... the prince himself appears to have been in
unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He even jested, if we may believe
the cotemporary manuscript, about a prophecy which had declared that a
king should that year be slain."--_Death of King James I_.; Tytler,
_Hist. Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 306.

5. "'I think,' said the old gardener to one of the maids, 'the gauger's
_fie_;' by which word the common people express those violent spirits
which they think a presage