one of those gay-coloured books so
common on the shelves of nursery libraries had, amongst other equally
_recherche_ couplets, the following attached to a gaudy print of a military
drum:

"Not a _rub-a-dub_ will come
To sound the music of a drum:"

--no great authority certainly, but sufficient to give the word a greater
antiquity than Dr. L. claims for it; and no doubt some of your readers will
be able to furnish more dignified instances of its use.

J. EASTWOOD.

Ecclesfield.

[To this it may be added, that _Dub-a-dub_ is found in Halliwell's
_Arch. Gloss._ with the definition, "To beat a drum; also, the blow on
the drum. 'The dub-a-dub of honour.' Woman is a weathercock, p. 21.,
there used metaphorically." Mr. Halliwell might also have cited the
nursery rhyme:

"Sing rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub."]

_Quotations._--

1. "In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

Quoted in _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act I. Sc. 1.

Mr. Knight (Library Edition, ii. 379.) says this line is from Hieronymo,
but gives no reference, and I have not found it. In a sonnet by Thomas
Watson (A.D. 1560-91) occurs the line (see Ellis's _Specimens_)--

"In time the bull is brought to bear the yoke."

Whence did Shakspeare quote the line?

2. "_Nature's mother-wit._" This phrase is found in Dryden's "Ode to St.
Cecilia," and also in Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, book iv. canto x. verse 21.
Where does it first occur?

3. "The divine chit-chat of Cowper." Query, Who first designated the "Task"
thus? Charles Lamb uses the phrase as a quotation. (See _Final Memorials of
Charles Lamb_, i. 72.)

J. H. C.

Adelaide, South Australia.

_Minnis._--There are (or there were) in East Kent seven Commons known by
the local term "Minnis," viz., 1. Ewell Minnis; 2. River do.; 3.
Cocclescombe do.; 4. Swingfield do.; 5. Worth do.; 6. Stelling do.; 7.
Rhode do. Hasted (_History of Kent_) says he is at a loss for the origin of
the word, unless it be in the Latin "Mina," a certain quantity of land,
among different nations of different sizes; and he refers to Spelman's
_Glossary_, verbum "Mina."

Now the only three with which I am acquainted, River, Ewell, and Swingfield
Minnis, near Dover, are all on high ground; the two former considerably
elevated above their respective villages.

One would rather look for a Saxon than a Celtic derivation in East Kent;
but many localities, &c. there still retai