s. The _autograph_ MS. of Lenton occurred in Heber's sale (Part xi.
No. 724.), and is thus described:

_Hadassiah_, or the _History of Queen Hester_, sung in a sacred
and serious poeme, and divided into ten chapters, by F. Lenton,
the Queen's Majesties Poet, 1638.

This is undoubtedly the _correct_ date, as it is in the handwriting of
the author. Query. What is the meaning of Lenton's title, "the Queen's
Majesties Poet"?

Edward F. Rimbault.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_Lilburn or Prynne?_--I am anxious to suggest in "Notes and Queries"
whether a character in the Second Canto of Part iii. of _Hudibras_ (line
421), beginning,

"To match this saint, there was another,
As busy and perverse a brother,
An haberdasher of small wares,
In politics and state affairs,"

Has not been wrongly given by Dr. Grey to Lilburn, and whether Prynne is
not rather the person described. Dr. Grey admits in his note that the
application of the passage to Lilburn involves an anachronism, Lilburn
having died in 1657, and this passage being a description of one among

"The quacks of government who sate"

to consult for the Restoration, when they saw ruin impending.

CH.

_Peep of Day._--Jacob Grimm, in his _Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 428., ed.
1., remarks that the ideas of light and sound are sometimes confounded;
and in support of his observation he quotes passages of Danish and
German poets in which the sun and moon are said to _pipe_ (pfeifen). In
further illustration of this usage, he also cites the words "the sun
began to peep," from a Scotch ballad in Scott's _Border Minstrelsy_,
vol. ii. p. 430. In p. 431. he explains the words "par son l'aube,"
which occur in old French poets, by "per sonitum aurorae;" and compares
the English expression, "the peep of day."

The Latin _pipio_ or _pipo_, whence the Italian _pipare_, and the French
_pepier_, is the ultimate origin of the verb _to peep_; which, in old
English, bore the sense of chirping, and is so used in the authorised
version of Isaiah, viii. 19., x. 14. Halliwell, in his _Archaic
Dictionary_, explains "peep" as "a flock of chickens," but cites no
example. _To peep_, however, in the sense of taking a rapid look at
anything through a small aperture, is an old use of the word, as is
proved by the expression _Peeping_ Tom of Coventry. As so used, it
corresponds with the German _gucken_. Mr. Richardson remarks that this
meaning