ils of a private nature, which would
be found devoid of interest to the world. Mr. Repton, indeed, possessed
a mind as keenly alive to the ludicrous, as it was open to all that was
excellent, in the variety of characters with whom his extensive
professional connexions brought him acquainted; and he did not fail to
observe and note down many curious circumstances and traits of
character, in themselves highly amusing, but, for obvious reasons,
unfit subjects for publication. Not one taint of satire or ill-nature,
however, ever sullied the wit which flowed spontaneously from a mind
sportive sometimes even to exuberance." His artistic critiques will be
found in the following works: _The Bee_: or, a Critique on the
Exhibition of Paintings at Somerset House, 1788, 8vo. _Variety_: a
Collection of Essays, 1788, 12mo. _The Bee_: a Critique on the
Shakspeare Gallery, 1789, 8vo. _Odd Whims_: being a republication of
some papers in Variety, with a Comedy and other Poems, 2 vols. 12mo.,
1804.]

"_Oriel._"--I should be glad if any of your correspondents could inform me
of the origin of the term _oriel_, as applied to a window? It is not, I
believe, necessarily to the East.

T. L. N.

Jamaica.

[_Oriol_, or _Oriel_, is a portico or court; also a small room near the
hall in monasteries, where particular persons dined. (Blount's
_Glossog._) Du Cange says, "_Oriolum_, porticus, atrium;" and quotes
Matthew Paris for it. Supposed by some to be a diminutive from _area_
or _areola_. "In modern writings," says Nares, "we meet with mention of
_Oriel_ windows. I doubt the propriety of the expression; but, if
right, they must mean those windows that project like a porch, or small
room. At St. Albans was an _oriel_, or apartment for persons not so
sick as to retire to the infirmary. (Fosbroke's _Brit. Monachism_, vol.
ii. p. 160.) I may be wrong in my notion of _oriel_ window, but I have
not met with ancient authority for that expression. Cowel conjectured
that _Oriel_ College, in Oxford, took its name from some such room or
portico. There is a remarkable portico, in the farther side of the
first quadrangle, but not old enough to have given the name. It might,
however, be only the successor of one more ancient, and more exactly an
_oriel_." For articles on the disputed derivation of this term, which
seems involved in