ng, as well as in acting."

There is a similar passage in Bishop Andrews's sermon _Of the
Resurrection_, preached in 1613:

"Pilate asked, _Quid est veritas?_ And then some other matter took him
in the head, and so up he rose, and went his way, before he had his
answer; he deserved never to find what truth was. And such is our
seeking mostwhat, seldom or never seriously, but some question that
comes cross our brain for the present, some _quid est veritas_? So
sought as if that we sought were as good lost as found. Yet this we
would fain have so for seeking, but it will not be."

Perhaps Bacon heard the bishop preach (the sermon was at Whitehall); and if
so, the passage in Andrews will explain the word "jesting" to mean, not
scoffing, but asking without serious purpose of acquiring information.

J. A. H.

_Abolition of Government Patronage._--The following passage, from Dr.
Middleton's _Dedication of the Life of Cicero_ to Lord Keeper Hervey, is
{467} interesting as showing the enlightened sentiments of an eminent
scholar a hundred years ago when addressing a minister of the crown:

"Human nature has ever been the same in all ages and nations, and owes
the difference of its improvements to a difference only of culture, and
of the rewards proposed to its industry; where these are the most amply
provided, there we shall always find the most numerous and shining
examples of human perfection. In old Rome, the public honours were laid
open to the virtue of every citizen; which, by raising them in their
turns to the commands of that mighty empire, produced a race of nobles
superior even to kings. This was a prospect that filled the soul of the
ambitious and roused every facility of mind and body to exert its
utmost force; whereas, in modern states, men's views being usually
confined to narrow bounds, beyond which they cannot pass, and a partial
culture of their talents being sufficient to procure everything that
their ambition can aspire to, a great genius has seldom either room or
invitation to stretch itself to its full size."

ALPHA.

Oxford.

* * * * *

Minor Queries.

"_One New Year's Day._"--An old lady used to amuse my childhood by singing
a song commencing--

"One New Year's day, as I've heard say,
Dick mounted on his dappled grey," &c.

The rest I forget, but I should be glad to know