e of
later date.

But it must be observed, there is a difference between "arrish" and
"harrisers." Can it be shown that Dorset-men are given to aspirating their
words? Besides this, there is a great difference between "arri_ss_ers" and
"arri_sh_ers" for counties so near as Dorset and Devon. And again, while I
am quite familiar with the word "arrish," I never heard "arrishers," and I
believe it is unknown in Devonshire.

J. E.

Oxford.

_Harrisers or Arrishers._--Doubtless, by this time, some dozen Devonshire
correspondents will have informed you, for the benefit of CLERICUS
RUSTICUS, that _arrishers_ is the term prevailing in that county for
"stubble." The Dorset harrisers are therefore, perhaps, the second set of
gleaners, who are admitted to the fields to pick up from the stubble, or
_arrishes_, the little left behind by the reapers' families. A third set of
gleaners has been admitted from time immemorial, namely, the _Anser
stipularis_, which feeds itself into plump condition for Michaelmas by
picking up, from between the stubble, the corns which fell from the ears
during reaping and sheaving. The Devonshire designation for this excellent
sort of poultry--known elsewhere as "stubble geese"--is "arrish geese."

The derivation of the word must be left to a better provinial philologist
than

W. H. W.

_Chaucer's "Fifty Wekes"_ (Vol. iii., p. 202.).--A. E. B.'s natural and
ingeniously-argued conjecture, that Chaucer, by the "_fifty wekes_" of the
_Knightes Tale_, "meant to imply the interval of _a solar year_,"--whether
we shall rest in accepting the poet's measure of time loosely and
poetically, or (which I would gladly feel myself authorised to do) find in
it, with your correspondent, an astronomical and historical reason,--is
fully secured by the comparison with Chaucer's original.

The _Theseus_ of Boccaccio says, appointing the listed fight:

"E TERMINE vi sia a cio donato
D'UN ANNO INTERO."

To which the poet subjoins:

"E cosi fu ordinato."

See TESEIDE, v. 98.

A. L. X.

_The Almond Tree, &c._ (Vol. iii., p. 203.).--The allusions in Hall's poem,
stanzas iii. & v., refer to the fine allegorical description of human
decrepitude in _Ecclesiastes_, xii. 5, 6., when

"'The almond tree shall flourish' (_white hairs_), and 'the silver cord
shall be loosed,' and 'the golden bowl broken,' and 'the mourners shall
go about the streets.'"

The pertinence of these solemn figures has been