Grecia, there are sold in London above twenty sorts of
other drinks: as brandy, coffee, chocolate, tea, aromatick, mum,
sider, perry, beer, ale; many sorts of ales very different, as
cock, _stepony_, stickback, Hull, North-Down, Sambidge, Betony,
scurvy-grass, sage-ale, &c. A piece of wantonness whereof none
of our ancestors were ever guilty."

It will be observed that the ales are named in some instances from
localities, and in others from the herbs of which they were decoctions.
Can any of your readers tell me anything of Stepony ale? Was it ale
brewed at Stepney?

James T. Hammack

"_Regis ad Exemplar_."--Can you inform me whence the following line is
taken?

"Regis ad exemplar totus componitur orbis."

Q.Q.Q.

"_La Caconacquerie_".--Will one of your numerous correspondents be kind
enough to inform me what is the true signification and derivation of the
word "caconac?" D'Alembert, writing to Voltaire concerning Turgot, says:

"You will find him an excellent _caconac_, though he has reasons
for not avowing it:--la caconacquerie ne mene pas a la fortune."

Ardern.

_London Dissenting Ministers: Rev. Thomas Tailer._--Not being entirely
successful in my Queries with regard to "London Dissenting Ministers"
(Vol. i., pp. 383. 444. 454.), I will state a circumstance which,
possibly, may assist some one of your correspondents in furnishing an
answer to the second of those inquiries.

In the lines immediately referred to, where certain Nonconformist
ministers of the metropolis are described under images taken from the
vegetable world, the late Rev. Thomas Tailer (of Carter Lane), whose
voice was feeble and trembling, is thus spoken of:--

"Tailer tremulous as aspen leaves."

But in verses afterwards circulated, if not printed, the censor was
rebuked as follows:--

"Nor tell of Tailer's trembling voice so weak,
While from his lips such charming accents break,
And every virtue, every Christian grace,
Within his bosom finds a ready place."

No encomium could be more deserved, none more seasonably offered or more
appropriately conveyed. I knew Mr. Tailer, and am pleased in cherishing
recollections of him.

W.

_Mistletoe as a Christmas Evergreen._--Can any of your readers inform me
at what period of time the mistletoe came to be recognised as a
Christmas evergreen? I am aware it played a great part in those
ceremonies of the ancient Druids which took place to