in sable stole,
Graceful in years, pant eager for the goal.
Old Norbury starts, and, with the _seventh-form_ boys,
In weeds of Greek the church-yard's peace annoys,
With classic Weston, Charley Coote and Tew,
In dismal dance about the mournful yew.
But first in notes Sicilian placed on high,
Bates sounds the soft precluding symphony;
And in sad cadence, as the bands condense,
The curfew tolls the knell of _parting sense_."

The distribution of prizes is thus recorded, Dr. Norbury being
apparently the "conqueror:"--

"Nares rising paused; then gave, the contest done,
To Weston, Taylor's Hymns and Alciphron,
And Rochester's Address to lemans loose;
To Tew, Parr's Sermon and the game of goose;
To Coote the foolscap, as the best relief
A dean could hope; last to the hoary chief
He filled a cup; then placed on Norbury's back
The Sunday suit of customary black.
The gabbling ceased; with fixed and serious look
Gray glanced from high, and owned his rival, COOK."

W.
Lincoln's Inn, Dec. 17.

_Coffee, the Lacedaemonian Black Broth._--Your correspondent "R.O."
inquires what modern author suggests the probability of coffee being the
black broth of the Lacedaemonians? The suggestion, I think, originated
with George Sandys, the translator of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. Sandys
travelled in the Turkish empire in 1610. He first published his _Notes_
in 1615. The following is from the 6th edit. 1652, p. 52.:--

"Although they be destitute of taverns, yet have they their
coffa-houses, which something resemble them. Their sit they,
chatting most of the day, and sip of a drink called coffa (of
the berry that it is made of), in little _China_ dishes, as hot
as they can suffer it; black as soot, and tasting not much
unlike it (why not that black broth which was in use among the
Lacedaemonians?) which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and
procureth alacrity," &c.

Burton also (_Anatomy of Melancholy_) describes it as "like that black
drink which was in use among the Lacedaemonians, and perhaps the same."

E.B. PRICE.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

THE LAST OF THE VILLAINS.

It would be an interesting fact if we could ascertain the last bondsman
by blood--_nativus de sanguine_--who lived in this country. The
beginning of the seventeenth century is the period usually referred to
as the date of the extinction of personal villenage. In