the Low
Countries_, appears to be this, that a person "courtly or gentle" would
receive as little kindness from the inhabitants, and show as great a
contrast to their boorishness, as the handsome and docile merlin (which
is the smallest of the falcon tribe, anciently denominated "noble"),
among a crowd of noisy, cunning, thievish crows; neither remarkable for
their beauty nor their politeness. The words "after Michaelmas" are used
because "the merlin does not breed here, but visits us in October."
_Bewick's British Birds_, vol. i. p. 43.

T.H. KERSLEY.

King William's College, Isle of Man.

_Harefinder_ (Vol. ii., p. 216.).--The following lines from Drayton's
_Polyolbion_, Song 23., sufficiently illustrates this term:--

"The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport
The _Finder_ sendeth out, to seeke out nimble _Wat_,--
Which crosseth in the field, each furlong every flat,
Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found:
Then viewing for the course which is the fairest ground,
The greyhounds forth are brought, for coursing then in case,
And, choycely in the slip, one leading forth a brace;
The Finder puts her up, and gives her coursers' law,"
&c.

In the margin, at the second line, are the words, _The Harefinder_. What
other instances are there of _Wat_, as a name of the hare? It does not
occur in the very curious list in the _Reliquiae Antiquae_, i. 133.

K.

_Fool or a Physician--Rising and Setting Sun_ (Vol. i., p. 157.).--The
inquiry of your correspondent C. FORBES, respecting the authorship of
the two well-known sayings on these subjects, seems to have received no
reply. He thinks that we owe them both to that "imperial Macchiavel,
Tiberius." He is right with respect to the one, and wrong with regard to
the other. The saying, "that a man after thirty must be either a fool or
a physician," had, as it appears, its origin from Tiberius; but the
observation that "more worship the rising than the setting sun," is to
be attributed to Pompey.

Tacitus says of Tiberius, that he was "solitus eludere medicorum artes,
atque eos qui post tricesimum aetatis annum ad internoscenda corpori
{316} suo utilia vel noxia alieni consilia indigerent." _Annal_. vi. 46.
Suetonius says: "Valetudine prosperrima usus est,--quamvis a tricesimo
aetatis anno arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjumento consiliove
medicorum." _Tib._ c. 68. And Plutarch, in his precepts _de Valetudine
tuenda_, c. 49., says