nd men
ploughing in the background, and this motto, "Compositis venerantur Annis."
The date is MDCCXIII. An explanation of the object of the medal is desired.

OLDBUCK.

Philadelphia.

_The Black Cap._--Can any of your antiquarian legal readers inform me of
the origin of the custom of the judges putting on a black cap when
pronouncing sentence of death upon a criminal? I can find no illustration
of this peculiar custom in Blackstone, Stephens, or other constitutional
writers.

F. J. G.

_The Aboriginal Britons._--A friend of mine wants some information as to
the history, condition, manners, &c. of the Britons, prior to the arrival
of the Romans. What work, accessible to ordinary readers, supplies the best
compendium of what is known on this subject? The fullest account of which I
have, just now, any recollection, is contained in Milton's _History of
England_, included in an edition of Milton's _Prose Works_, three vols.
folio, Amsterdam, 1694. Is Milton's _History_ a work of any merit or
authority?

H. MARTIN.

Halifax.

* * * * *

Minor Queries with Answers.

"_Gossip._"--This word, in its obsolete sense, according no doubt to its
Saxon origin, means a sponsor, one who answers for a child in baptism, a
godfather. Its modern acceptation all know to be widely different. Can any
of your correspondents quote a passage or two from old English authors,
wherein its obsolete sense is preserved?

N. L. J.

[The word occurs in Chaucer, _The Wyf of Bathes Prologue_, v. 5825.:

"And if I have a _gossib_, or a friend,
(Withouten gilt) thou chidest as a frend,
If that I walke or play into his hous."

And in Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, b. i. c. 12.:

"One mother, when as her foole-hardy child
Did come too neare, and with his talons play,
Halfe dead through feare, her little babe reuil'd,
And to her _gossips_ gan in counsell say."

Master Richard Verstegan is more to the point:

"Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow
between the parents and such as undertooke for the child at baptisme,
called each other by the name of _Godsib_, which is as much as to say,
that they were _sib_ together, that is, _of kin_ together through God.
And the child, in like manner, called such his God-fathers, or
God-mothers."--_Restitution of Decayed Intelligence_, ch. vii.

A quotation or two fr