alogous to the custom of hoisting broom at the
mast-head of a vessel which is to be disposed of?

S.S.S.

_George Lord Goring_, well known in history as Colonel Goring and
General Goring, until the elevation of his father to the earldom
of Norwich, in Nov. 1644, is said by Lodge to have left England
in November, 1645, and after passing some time in France, to have
gone into the Netherlands, where he obtained a commission as
Lieutenant-General in the Spanish army. Lodge adds, upon the authority
of Dugdale, that he closed his singular life in that country, in the
character of a Dominican friar, and his father surviving him, he never
became Earl of Norwich. A recent publication, speaking of Lord Goring,
says he carried his genius, his courage, and his villainy to market on
the Continent, served under Spain, and finally assumed the garb of a
Dominican friar, and died in a convent cell.

Can any of your readers inform me _when_ and _where_ he died, and
whether any particulars are known respecting him after his retirement
abroad, and when his marriage took place with his wife Lady Lettice
Boyle, daughter of the Earl of Cork, who died in 1643? The confusion
that is made between the father and son is very great.

G.

_Bands_.--What is the origin of the clerical and academical custom
of wearing _bands_? Were they not originally used for the purpose of
preserving the cassock from being soiled by the beard? This is the
only solution that presents itself to my mind.

OXONIENSIS NONDUM-GRADUATUS.

* * * * *

REPLIES.

DERIVATION OF "NEWS" AND "NOISE."

I hasten to repudiate a title to which I have no claim; a compliment
towards the close of the letter of your correspondent "CH." (Vol. i.,
p. 487.) being evidently intended for a gentleman whose _christian_
name, only, _differs_ from mine. The compliment in his case is
well-deserved; and it will not lower him in your correspondent's
opinion, to know that he is not answerable for the sins laid to my
charge. And now for a word in my own behalf.

Indeed, CH. is rather hard upon me, I must confess. In using the
simple form of assertion as more convenient,--although I intended
thereby merely to express that such was my opinion, and not dreaming
of myself as an authority,--I have undoubtedly erred. In the single
instance in which I used it, instead of saying "it is," I should have
said "I think it is." Throughout the rest of my argum