of
Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, there are some profound researches by
Melot and others, in which may be found answers to all the Queries proposed
by G. W.

The islands, rivers, mountains, cities, and remarkable places of Phoenician
colonies, had even in the time of the habitation of the Greeks and Romans
Phoenician names, which, according to the spirit of the ancient languages
of the East, indicated clearly the properties of the places which bore
those names. See instances in Bochart, _ubi supra_; Sammes's _Britannia
Antiqua Illustrata, or the Antiquities of Ancient Britain derived from the
Phoenicians_; and D'Hancarville's Preface to Hamilton's _Etruscan, &c.
Antiquities_.

BIBLIOTHECAR. CHETHAM.

_Unpublished Epigram by Sir Walter Scott_ (Vol. vii., pp. 498. 576.).--The
following extract is from the _Gentleman's Magazine_, March, 1824, p. 194.:

"Mr. J. Lawrence of Somers Town observes: 'In the summer of the year
1770 I was on a visit at Beaumont Hall on the coast of Essex, a few
miles distant from Harwich. It was then the residence of Mr. Canham....
I was invited to ascend the attics in order to read some lines,
imprinted by a cowboy of precocious intellect. I found these in
handsome, neatly executed letters, printed and burnished with
leaf-gold, on the wall of his sleeping-room. They were really golden
verses, and may well be styled Pythagorean from their point, to wit:

'Earth goes upon the earth, glittering like gold;
Earth goes to the earth sooner than 'twould;
Earth built upon the earth castles and towers;
Earth said to the Earth, All shall be ours.'

The curiosity of these lines so forcibly impressed them on my memory,
that time has not been able to efface a tittle of them. _But from what
source did the boy obtain them?_"

Permit me to repeat this Query?

J. R. M., M.A.

_Derivation of the Word "Humbug"_ (Vol. viii. _passim_).--Not being
satisfied with any of the derivations of this word hitherto proposed in
your pages, I beg to suggest that perhaps it may be traced to a famous
dancing master who flourished about the time when the word first came into
use. The following advertisement appeared in the _Dublin Freeman's Journal_
in Jan. 1777:

"_To the Nobility._

"As Monsieur Humbog does not intend for the future teaching abroad
after 4 o'clock, he, at the request of his scholars, has opened an
academy for young ladies of fashio