asse?

W.B.R.

[Footnote 3: The Duke of York, afterwards James II.]

* * * * *

MINOR QUERIES.

_Epigrams on the Universities_.--There are two clever epigrams on the
circumstance, I believe, of Charles I. sending a troop of horse to one
of the universities, about the same time that he presented some books to
the other.

The sting of the first, if I recollect right, is directed against the
university to which the books were sent, the king--

"--right well discerning,
How much that loyal body wanted learning."

The reply which this provoked, is an attack on the other university, the
innuendo being that the troops were sent there--

"Because that learned body wanted loyalty."

I quote from memory.

Can any of your readers, through the medium of your valuable paper,
favour me with the correct version of the epigrams, and with the
particular circumstances which gave rise to them?

J. SWANN.

Norwich.

_Lammas Day_.--Why was the 1st of August called "Lammas Day?" Two
definitions are commonly given to the word "Lammas." 1. That it may mean
_Loaf-mass_. 2. That it may be a word having some allusion to St. Peter,
as the patron of _Lambs_.

O'Halloran, however, in his _History of Ireland_, favours us with
another definition; upon the value of which I should be glad of the
opinion of some of your learned contributors. Speaking of Lughaidh, he
says:--

"From this prince the month of August was called Lughnas
(Lunas), from which the English adopted the name _Lammas_, for
the 1st day of August."

J. SANSOM.

_Mother Grey's Apples_.--At the time I was a little girl,--you will not,
I am sure, be ungallant enough to inquire when that was, when I tell you
I am now a woman,--I remember that the nursery maid, whose duty it was
to wait upon myself and sisters, invariably said, if she found us out of
temper--"So, so! young ladies, you are in the sulks, eh? Well, sulk
away; you'll be like 'Mother Grey's apples,' you'll be sure to come
round again." We often inquired, on the return of fine weather, who
Mother Grey was, and what were the peculiar circumstances of the apples
coming round?--questions, however, which were always evaded. Now, as the
servant was a Cambridge girl, and had a brother a _gyp_, or bedmaker, at
one of the colleges, besides her uncle keeping the tennis court there, I
have often thought there must have been some college legend or tradition
in Alma