tion of the late Mr. J. Stafford
Smith, one of the Organists of the Chapel Royal. At the sale of this
gentleman's valuable library it passed, with many other treasures of a
similar nature, into my possession, where it now remains.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

_Mr. Macaulay and Sir Archibald Alison in error._--How was it that Mr.
Macaulay, in two editions of his _History_, placed the execution of Lord
Russell on Tower Hill? Did it not take place in Lincoln's Inn Fields? And
why does Sir A. Alison, in the volume of his _History_ just published,
speak of the children of Catherine of Arragon? and likewise inform us that
Locke was expelled from Cambridge? Was he not expelled from the University
of Oxford?

ABHBA.

"_Paid down upon the nail._"--The origin of this phrase is thus stated in
the _Recollections of O'Keefe_ the dramatist:

"An ample piazza under the Exchange [in Limerick] was a thoroughfare:
in the centre stood a pillar about four feet high, and upon it a
circular plate of copper about three feet in diameter: this was called
_the nail_, and on it was paid the earnest for any commercial bargains
made; which was the origin of saying, 'Paid down upon the nail.'"

But perhaps the custom, of which Mr. O'Keefe speaks, was common to other
ancient towns?

ABHBA.

_Corpulence a Crime._--Mr. Bruce has written, in his _Classic and Historic
Portraits_, that the ancient Spartan paid as much attention to the rearing
of men as the cattle dealers in modern England do to the breeding of
cattle. They took charge of firmness and looseness of men's flesh; and
regulated the degree of fatness to which it was lawful, in a free state,
for any citizen to extend his body. Those who dared to grow too fat, or too
soft for military exercise and the service of Sparta, were soundly whipped.
In one particular instance, that of Nauclis, the son of Polytus, the
offender was brought before the Ephori, and a meeting of the whole people
of Sparta, at which his unlawful fatness was publicly exposed; and he was
threatened with perpetual banishment if he did not bring his body within
the regular Spartan compass, and give up his culpable mode of living; which
was declared to be more worthy of an Ionian than a son of Lacedaemon.

W. W.

_Curious Tender._--

"If any young clergyman, somewhat agreeable in person, and who has a
small fortune independent, can be well recommended as to strictness of
morals and good temper,