bearing the septa in the middle. Seeds round, hard. Albumen horny, or firmly fleshy. Embryo with the same direction as the seed. Herbs, rarely undershrubs. Leaves equitant, in two ranks, with their edges turned upwards (except in Crocus.) Flowers spathaceous, terminal, either in a spike or corymbs, or panicle; sometimes partly underground. Br. (Hook. Fl.Scot.) Genera.

IRIS. IXIA. CROCUS.

Halesworth.

D***.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE POCKET MAGAZINE. SIR,-After having seen the remains of my late worthy and esteemed friend, Mr. Christopher Poker, quietly deposited in the earth, I little thought that the world would again be troubled by any of his speculations; and I must confess that I imagined that his memory, like the black coat which I put on in token of my grief for his loss, would gradually become more and more neglected; and at length be entirely forgotten. All these expectations, however, have been disappointed by the ill-judged efforts of his nephew, Mr. Thomas Poker, to convince the world that in his uncle it has lost one of its brightest ornaments; and I therefore, think it my duty now publicly to do what I have often before done in private, namely, to confute and overthrow the flimsy conjectures of my deceased soi-disant brother antiquary. There are several circumstances which make me averse to act in this manner. To say any thing to the prejudice of the dead, is at best but an unpleasant task, and it becomes particularly irksome when the person of whom we speak was a parti`cular friend. Nevertheless, a sense of what I owe to myself, and to the public, will not allow me to be silent; for it is well known to all our acquaintance, that I often politely insinuated to the late Mr. P. that he was an ass, and that, if ever he dared to publish his history of signs, I would, as Shakespeare hath it, "write him down an ass." Now, although he has cunningly thought fit to die, (no doubt in order that his work might be given to the public, and at the same

time to avoid my denunciation,) yet I do not think that his death releases me from my promise; and, therefore, I now sit down to convince the world that he was a mere ciarlatore, (as the Italian saith) or, in other words, an empty babbler.

But, in the first place, I must say a few words of the character of the deceased; from which I hope to deduce some reasons to convince your readers of the jus tice of my sentiments concerning him. He was, as is well known, a frequenter of all manner of houses of public entertainment; and he in vain endeavoured to cloke his penchant towards them, under a pretended desire to investigate their signs. Indeed, I am sorry to be obliged to declare, that his death originated in his love, not for signs, but for the substances which those signs informed the world are sold at the houses where they are exhibited; and though the nephew has, (certainly with great tenderness towards the memory of his uncle,) endeavoured to persuade your readers that he caught the cold, of which he died, in groping in a vault in search of antiquities, I am compelled to inform them, that the vault alluded to contained sundry hogsheads and hampers, all filled with various preparations of the juice of the grape, and that the antiquities alluded to by Mr. T. Poker, were nothing else than old crusted port and cogniac brandy: I have also further to make known, that he obtained admittance into the vault in a manner somewhat particular; for, having accompanied a party to view the cellar, (celebrated on account of its magnitude,) he contrived to secrete himself therein until they had departed; and it was not till after three hours had elapsed that he was discovered, lying on his face, (and in a condition which I shall not describe,) near several bottles, the contents of which he had decanted down his throat. Such was the man who, in order to conceal his love for wine and for taverns, wrote twelve volumes folio on the signification of ale-house signs; although he was, I must say, utterly destitute of all the erudition requisite for a work of so much consequence; all his learning consisting, (as indeed he has shewn in the essay you have published,) of scraps gleaned out of the Eton Latin Grammar, Clark's Classics, in which

an English translation is attached to the original text, and other works of a similar nature.

To proceed, then, Sir, the very first attempt which Mr. C. Poker has made at antiquarian disquisition, has manifestly failed. "Hotel," says he, is derived from the English words hot and hell,-" quasi hot as hell," whereas it is, or at least ought to be, known even unto children in this enlightened age, that it is derived, with scarcely any variation, from the Norman word hostel or hostiel, signifying originally a house, as hoste did, and does now, designate a host or landlord. These words, hostel and hoste, are imagined to have been originally from the Latin hospitium and hospes; and we find them in the Italian with scarcely any variation, namely, osteria and oste. It is also from this word hostel, that the present term ostler is derived, for hostelier and ostler originally signified the keeper of an hotel or inn, as ostler does now the man who performs that part of the duty of the landlord which relates to the stable.

Having thus settled the etymology of hotel, we will proceed to speak of the word "Talbot."-In the first place, Mr. C. Poker's allusion to the celebrated Earl of Shrewsbury, as connected with the troubles of Henry the Sixth, is one of those trifling contrivances, by means of which shallow pretenders endeavour to conceal their ignorance; for that Earl was killed before the civil wars broke out between the houses of York and Lancaster, and the reference to the records of our ancient monarchy, to prove that there was a palace at Richmond, is another specious attempt at antiquarian research; for every body knows that Richmond, from time immemorial, was a retreat of our kings, and that Edward the Third, and Anne queen of Richard the Second, died there, and that there that unhappy woman Queen Elizabeth made her forlorn and miserable end.

There is another circumstance which is somewhat suspicious, in the essay of my deceased friend; namely, the two lines which he says he has taken from Chaucer, because it is affirmed, that Richmond, in the time of Chaucer, was called by its Saxon name of Sheen; and it is more than probable, that Mr. C. Po

66

ker has forged the lines in question, as authority for the word tarbutte," which, after all, has no connexion with the word "talbot ;" and as for his " tall bout" and his "tar butts," they are too contemptible to merit confutation. Indeed, it is lamentable, that the writings of a man who was constantly in a fit of intoxication, should be thus exposed to the contempt of the world.

I cannot help again observing, how peculiarly unhappy this would-be antiquary was in all his etymologies. "Bonfires," says he, signify good fires, the word being derived from the French.' Now the case is, that the word is not French but Saxon; bælfyr signifying, in Anglo-Saxon, a funeral pile and bænfyr a bonfire, and how easily banfyr becomes, in the lapse of centuries, bonfire, the intelligent reader need not be told.

Having thus completely overthrown all the antiquarian lore of Mr. Charles Poker, we will, in a few lines, clear up any difficulty that may remain concerning the sign of the Talbot. Talbot, in the language of our ancestors, signified a dog, as I should have imagined every person might have known, since the author of Waverly has explained and translated the word, where, in that romance, he alludes to colonel Talbot's crest. More particularly it seems to have been appropriated to a dog with a curled tail. "Canis caudâ reflexâ præditus" saith Skinner in his Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicana; derived as he thinks from the Anglo-Saxon tegl a tail and butan projecting or exceeding; from hence it is evident, that Talbot was neither more nor less than a dug, and many inns in England, known by the name of the Talbot, do to this day bear a pictured representation of a dog as a sign. Whether the Talbot at Richmond comes under this description I am not at present prepared to say; but I think, after what I have proved, there can be no doubt that at some passed time this was the case.

Alas poor Christopher Poker!-poor Christopher Poker! little did I think, when I promised to write you down an ass, that I should be called upon to accomplish it after your death; and, in truth, I believe terror lest I should expose you kept you during your life

from experiencing that disgrace. How unfortunate are you, that the ignorant partiality of a nephew, (who has mistaken your unintelligible folio manuscripts for evidences of your learning,) should thus have forced upon you those asinine decorations which you so carefully avoided! At the same time, I must express some small degree of astonishment, at the bigoted admiration of your heir, who, considering he has received nothing from you but spoilt paper, empty bottles, and broken tobacco pipes, thus takes so much pains to cherish your memory. Better, far better, would it be for him to make the most of your lumber, by selling it to the cheesemongers and dealers in marine stores. But I spare the relative of a departed

friend.

I beg, sir, to congratulate you on the completion of your eighth volume; and, wishing that every succeeding year may, like the last, behold your admirable publication advancing in the estimation of the public, I am your very humble servant, NODDELBALD ROTTONSTON,

Professor of Ancient Literature in the University of Gothamburg, &c. &c. &c.

Gothamburg, Dec. 4, 1821.

ANECDOTE AND WIT.

No. 50. ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.

66

the

THIS extraordinary man, who certainly deserves far better than ninety nine in a hundred out of the Romish calendar, the appellation of Saint, was born at the village of Poui, near Acqus, in 1579, of a poor family. Cardinal Maury justly says of him, that he was a man of a sublime virtue, though but little known; best citizen France ever had; the apostle of humanity; who, after being a shepherd in his infancy, has left in his native country institutions more useful to the unfortunate than the finest establishments of his sovereign Lewis the Fourteenth."

Vincent de Paul was successively a slave at Tunis, (and probably it was this circumstance that for ever No. 50.

D