Towers. Possibly some of your able
correspondents will kindly supply some information on one or both of these
subjects.

W. R. M.

_Round Robbin._--In Dr. Heylin's controversy with Fuller on his Church
History, the following quotation[1] occurs:

"That the Sacrament of the Altar is nothing else but a piece of bread,
or a little _predie round robbin_."

In the East Riding of Yorkshire the term is designative of a petition, in
which all the names are signed radiating from a centre, so as to render it
impossible to discover who was the first to sign it. What is the derivation
of it?

R. W. E.

Cor. Chr. Coll., Cambridge.

[Footnote 1: _Appeal of Injured Innocence_, p. 462.]

_Experto crede Roberto._--What is the origin of this saying?

N. B.

_Captain Howe._--

Captain Howe, the King's (George II.) nephew by an illegitimate
source."--_Pictorial History of England_, iv. 597.

Can you inform me how this captain was thus related to George II.?

F. B. RELTON.

_Bactria._--Can you refer me to a work worthy the name of _The History of
Bactria_, or to detached information concerning Bactriana, under the
Scythian kings? I also want a guide to the Graeco-Bactrian series of coins.

BLOWEN.

* * * * *

Replies.

THE FAMILY OF THE TRADESCANTS.

(Vol. ii., pp. 119. 286.)

The family of the Tradescants is involved in considerable obscurity, and
the period of the arrival of the first of that name in England is not, for
a certainty, known. There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants at one
time in this country--grandfather, father, and son. John Tradescant (or
Tradeskin, as he was generally called by his contemporaries) the elder was,
according to Anthony Wood, a Fleming or a Dutchman. He probably came to
England about the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, or in the beginning
of that of James the First. He is reported to have been a great traveller,
and to have previously visited Barbary, Greece, Egypt, and other Eastern
countries. Upon his first arrival here he is said to have been successively
gardener to the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, Lord Weston, the Duke of
Buckingham, and other noblemen of distinction. In these situations he
remained until the office of royal gardener was bestowed upon him in 1629.

To John Tradescant the elder, posterity is mainly indebted for the
introduction of botany in this kingdom. "He, by great industry, made it
manifest that