inst
such removal. One of the friends of the college was on this occasion heard
to remark, "the removal to London was going on very smoothly, and it would
have been done by this time, if this one trustee had not _put his spoke in
the wheel_:" meaning, that the conscientious scruple of this trustee was
the sole _impediment to the movement_. Is this the _customary_ and proper
mode of using the phrase; and, if so, how can putting a spoke to a wheel
impede its motion?

On the other hand, having heard some persons say that they had always
understood the phrase to denote affording _help_ to an undertaking, and
confidently allege that this must be the _older_ and {270} more correct
usage, for "what," say they, "is a wheel without spokes?" I inquired of an
intelligent lady, of long American descent, in what way she had been
accustomed to hear the phrase employed, and the answer was "Certainly as a
help: we used to say to one who had anything in hand of difficult
accomplishment, 'Do not be faint-hearted, I'll give you a spoke.'"

Dr. Johnson, in the folio edition of his _Dictionary_, 1755, after defining
a spoke to be the "bar of a wheel that passes from the nave to the felly,"
cites:

" . . . . All you gods,
In general synod, take away her power,
Break all the _spokes_ and fellies to her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of Heaven."--_Shakspeare_.

G. K.

_Sir W. Hewit._--At p. 159. of Mr. Thoms's recent edition of Pulleyn's
_Etymological Compendium_, Sir W. Hewit, the father-in-law of Edward
Osborne, who was destined to found the ducal family of Leeds, is said to
have been "a pin-maker." Some other accounts state that he was a
clothworker; others again, that he was a goldsmith. Which is correct; and
what is the authority? And where may any pedigree of the Osborne family,
_previous to Edward_, be seen?

H. T. GRIFFITH.

_Passage in Virgil._--Dr. Johnson, in his celebrated Letter to Lord
Chesterfield, says, in reference to the hollowness of patronage: "The
shepherd, in Virgil, grew at last acquainted with Love; and found him a
native of the rocks." To what passage in Virgil does Johnson here refer,
and what is the point intended to be conveyed?

R. FITZSIMONS.

Dublin.

_Fauntleroy._--In Binns' _Anatomy of Sleep_ it is stated that a few years
ago an affidavit was taken in an English court of justice, to the effect
that Fauntleroy was still living in a town of the United States.