" according as the
following word commences with a vowel or a consonant, was meant, I
conceive, entirely for elegance in _speaking_, to avoid the jar on
the ear which would otherwise be occasioned, and has no reference
to _writing_, or the appearance on paper of the words. I consider,
therefore, that an exception must be made to the rule of using "An"
before words beginning with a vowel in cases where the words are
pronounced as if beginning with a consonant, as "one," "use," and its
derivatives, "ubiquity," "unanimity," and some others which will no
doubt occur to your readers. I should be glad to be informed if my
opinion is correct; and I will only further observe, that the same
remarks are applicable towards words beginning with "_h_." _An horse_
sounds as bad as _a hour_; and it is obvious that in these cases
employment of "A" or "An" is dictated by the consideration whether the
aspirate is _sounded_ or is _quiescent_, and has no reference to the
spelling of the word.

PRISCIAN.

_The Lucky have whole Days._--I, like your correspondent "P.S." (No.
15., p. 231.), am anxious to ascertain the authorship of the lines to
which he refers.

They stand in my Common-place Book as follows, which I consider to be
a more correct version than that given by "P.S.":--

"Fate's dark recesses we can never find,
But Fortune, at some hours, to all is kind:
The lucky have whole days, which still they choose;
The unlucky have but hours, and those they lose."

H.H.

_Line quoted by De Quincey._--"S.P.S." inquires who is the author of
the following line, quoted by De Quincey in the _Confessions of an
English Opium Eater_:--

"Battlements that on their restless fronts bore stars."

_Bishop Jewel's Papers._--It is generally understood that the papers
left by Bishop Jewel were bequeathed to his friend Dr. Garbrand, who
published some of them. The rest, it has been stated, passed from Dr.
G. into the possession of New College, Oxford. Are any of these still
preserved in the library of that college? or, if not, can any trace
be found of the persons into whose hands they subsequently came, or
of the circumstances under which they were lost to New College?

A.H.

_Allusion in Friar Brackley's Sermon_.--In Fenn's _Paston Letters_,
XCVIII. (vol. iii., p. 393., or vol. i., p. 113. Bohn), entitled "An
ancient Whitsunday Sermon, preached by Friar Brackley (whose hand it
is). At the Friers Minors Church in Norwich" oc