ain:

"This is a hard sermon: 'Who is able to abide it?' Therefore, Christ
must be prayed to depart, lest all their pigs be drowned. The devil
shall have his dwelling again in themselves, rather than in their
pigs." p. 409.

These, and similar expressions in the same writer, without reference to any
text upon the subject, seem to show, that men loving their pigs more than
God, was a theological phrase of the day, descriptive of their too great
worldliness. Hence, just as St. Paul said, "if the Lord will," or as we
say, "please God," or, as it is sometimes written, "D.V.," worldly men
would exclaim, "please the pigs," and thereby mean that, provided it suited
their present interest, they would do this or that thing.

ALFRED GATTY.

Ecclesfield.

[We subjoin the following Query, as one so closely connected with the
foregoing, that the explanation of the one will probably clear up the
obscurity in which the other is involved.]

{424} _To save One's Bacon._--Can you or any of your correspondents inform
me of the origin of the common saying, "He's just saved his bacon?" It has
puzzled me considerably, and I really can form no conjecture why "bacon"
should be the article "saved."

C.H.M.

_Arabic Numerals._--I should be glad to know something about the projected
work of Brugsh, Berlin, referred to in Vol. ii., p. 294.,--its size and
price.

J.W.H.

_Cardinal._--"_Never did Cardinal bring good to England._"--We read in Dr.
Ligard's _History_ (vol. iv. p. 527.), on the authority of Cavendish, that
when the Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey adjourned the inquiry into the
legality of Henry VIII.'s marriage with Catharine of Arragon, "the Duke of
Suffolk, striking the table, exclaimed with vehemence, that the 'old saw'
was now verified,--'Never did Cardinal bring good to England.'" I should be
glad to know if this saying is to be met with elsewhere, and what gave rise
to it?

O.P.Q.

"_By the bye," &c._--What is the etymology of the phrases "by the bye," "by
and by," and such like?

J.R.N.

_Poisons._--Our ancestors believed in the existence of poisons made so
artfully that they did not operate till several years after they were
administered. I should be greatly obliged by any information on this
subject obtained from English books published previously to 1600.

M.

_Cabalistic Author._--Who was the author of a chemical and cabalistical
work, not noticed by Lowndes, entitled: