then, and called first _mobile vulgus_, but fell naturally into the
contraction of one syllable, and ever since is become proper
English."--_Examen_, part III. ch. vii. p. 89.

H. GARDINER.

_Gen. Sir C. Napier_ (Vol. viii., p. 490.).--I may state, for the
instruction of officers who think study needless in their profession, that,
having enjoyed the intimate friendship of Sir C. Napier for some time
before he had the command in the midland district of England, I constantly
found him engaged in inquiries connected with his profession. He was always
in training. Not long before this time he had returned from Caen, in
Normandy, and he told me that when there he had surveyed the ground on
which William the Conqueror had acquired military fame before he made his
descent on England, and his conclusion was that that Conqueror was
remarkably well instructed for his time in the art of war. He expressed his
intention to write on this subject; but great events soon afterwards called
him to India, which became the scene of his own mastery in military and
civil command.

T. F.

_To Come_ (Vol. viii., p. 468.).--In the Lower Saxon dialect, to come is
_camen_, and the imperfect, as in Gothic, _quam_. It would therefore seem
that the English _came_ is not an innovation, but a partial restoration or
preservation of a very ancient form. (See Adelung's _Woerterbuch_.)

E. C. H.

_Passage in Sophocles_ (Vol. viii., pp. 73. 478.).--The Italics were
introduced to draw attention to the _new_ version which was adventured, "N.
& Q." being an excellent medium for such suggestions.

Sophocles having referred to "an illustrious saying of some one," and the
old scholiast having furnished this saying,

"[Greek: Hotan d' ho daimon andri porsunei kaka]
[Greek: Ton noun eblapse proton hoi bouleuetai],"

it merely became necessary to compare the form which Sophocles adopted to
suit his metre with the words of this "illustrious saying," whence it
appeared that--

[Greek: hoi bouleuetai prassei d' oligoston chronon ektos atas];

and therefore I could not agree with the common version "and that he lives
for a brief space apart from its visitation;" erroneous, as I submit, from
the adoption of Brunck's reading [Greek: prassein], instead of reading, as
I venture to do, with Hermann, [Greek: theos agei ... prassei d'], taking
[Greek: theos] as the nominative of both verbs.

Neither the Oxford translation, Edwards's, nor Buckley's,