es of territory, I send it to you for insertion.

A. SMITH.

[cross] "FOEDVS . QUOD . AELFREDVS . ET . LVTHRVNVS . REGES . OMNES .
ANGLIAM . INTOLEBANT . ORIENTALEM . FERIERVNT . ET . NON . SOLVM . DE .
SEIPSIS . VERVM . ETIAM . DE . NATIS . SVIS . AC . NONDVM . IN . LVCEM
. EDITIS . QVOTQVOT . MISERICORDIAE . DIVINAE . AVT . REGIAE . VELVNT .
ESSE . PARTICIPES . JVREJVRANDO . SANXERVNT." [cross]

[cross] "PRIMO . DITIONIS . NOSTRAE . FINES . TAMESIN . EVEHVNTOR .
INDE . LEAM . VSQVE . FONTEM . EJVS . TAM . RECTA . AD . BEDFORDIAM .
AC . DENIQVE . PER . VSAM . AD . VIAM . VETE . LINTIANAM."

_Wordsworth._--In Wordsworth's touching "Lament of Mary Queen of Scots,"
one of the stanzas opens with:

"_Born all too high; by wedlock rais'd_
_Still higher_, to be brought thus low!"

Is it straining a point to suppose that the author has here translated the
opening words of the well-known epitaph on the Empress Matilda, mother of
our Henry II.?

"_Ortu magna; viro major_; sed maxima prole;
Hic jacet Henrici filia, sponsa, parens."

A. W.

Sunningdale.

"_Magna est Veritas et praevalebit._"--I was asked the other day whence
came this hackneyed quotation. It is taken from the uncanonical Scriptures,
3 Esdras iv. 41.:

"Et desiit loquendo: Et omnes populi clamaverunt, et dixerunt: Magna
est veritas, et _praevalet_."

T. H. DE H.

"_Putting your Foot into it._"--The legitimate origin of this term I have
seen thus explained. Perhaps it may pass as correct until a better be
found. According to the _Asiatic Researches_, a very curious mode of trying
the title to land is practised in Hindostan. Two holes are dug in the
disputed spot, in each of which the lawyers on either side put one of their
legs, and remain there until one of them is tired, or complains of being
stung by insects, in which case his client is defeated. An American writer
has remarked that in the United States it is generally the _client_, and
not the _lawyer_, "who puts his foot in it."

W. W.

Malta.

* * * * *

Queries.

FRAGMENTS OF MSS.

Dr. Maitland, in his valuable volume on the "Dark Ages," has the following
remarks on a subject which I think has not met with the attention it
deserves:

"Those who are in the habit of looking at such things, know how
commonly early printed books, whose binding has undergone the
analytical operation of damp, or m