ot the horse borrowed from the warrior Lady of Mercia Ethelfleda?

3. CAN DU PLERA MELEOR CERA. Quand Dieu plaira meilleur sera. Charm on a
ring, olim penes W. Hamper, F.A.S.

F.Q.

* * * * *

MINOR NOTES.

_Circulation of the Blood._--About twenty-five years since, being in a
public library in France, a learned physician pointed out to me in the
works of the Venerable Bede a passage in which the fact of the circulation
of the blood appeared to him and myself to be clearly stated. I regret that
I did not, at the time, "make a note of it," and that I cannot now refer to
it, not having access to a copy of Bede: and I now mention it in hopes that
some of your correspondents may think it worth while to make it a subject
of research.

J. MN.

_Culprit, Origin of the Word._--Long ago I made this note, that this much
used English word was of French extraction, and that it was "_qu'il
paruit_," from the short way the clerk of the court has of pronouncing his
words; for our pleadings were formerly in French, and when the pleadings
were begun, he said to the defendant "_qu'il parait_"--culprit; and as he
was generally culpable, the "_qu'il parait_" became a synonyme with
offender.

T.

Cambridge.

[Does not our ingenious correspondent point at the more correct origin
of _culprit_, when he speaks of the defendant being "generally
_culpable?_"]

_Collar of SS._--In the volume of Bury Wills just issued by the Camden
Society, is an engraving from the decorations of the chantry chapel in St.
Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmund's, of John Baret, who died in 146-; in which
the collar is represented as SS in the upright form set on a collar of
leather or other material. It is described in the will as "my collar of the
king's livery." John Baret, says the editor of the Wills, was a lay officer
of the monastery of St. Edmund, probably treasurer, and was deputed to
attend Henry VI. on the occasion of the king's long visit to that famed
monastic establishment in 14--.

BURIENSIS.

_The Singing of Swans._--"It would," says Bishop Percy (Mallet's _North.
Antiq._, ii. p. 72.), "be a curious subject of disquisition, to inquire
what could have given rise to so arbitrary and groundless a notion as the
singing of swans," {476} which "hath not wanted assertors from almost every
nation." (Sir T. Browne.)

"Not in more swelling whiteness sails
Cayster's swan to western gales, [3]
When th