Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853. Various

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      After I wrote to you last Saturday morning, I went to the House, where I found a petition presented from fifteen tailors or tinkers, freeholders of Middlesex, against Lutterell. The opposition wanted a call of the House for Wednesday fortnight. We insisted on hearing it next Monday, and divided 94 against 49. This business retards the prorogation till this day or to-morrow se'nnight: but we are adjourned till Monday; so nothing but hearing this nonsense remains. Wilkes' stock falls very fast every day, and upon this measure there was such difference of opinion amongst his friends, that Sawbridge and Townsend would not attend on Saturday. Serjeant Whitacre has desired to be Lutterell's counsel gratis, in order to deliver his opinion at the bar of the House on the legality of Lutterell's seat; and says he shall insist, if the House should be of opinion that Lutterell is not duly elected, that he himself is, as having been next upon the poll of those who were capable of receiving votes.

      No news yet of your secretary. Some people are impatient to hear his report of the state of parties, and their several dispositions to support government, on your side the water. He must certainly be a most competent judge, after so long a residence there, and after such open and frank discourse as every man there would naturally hold with him upon critical matters. Some better judges than him, lately arrived from Ireland, make no scruple in declaring there will be a majority of forty against the Castle at the opening the session. Adieu, my dear little Bob: my love to the Provost.

      P.S.—I shall get the Journals of the House of Commons for you certainly.

      It would be ungrateful in the present company here not to take some notice of you, just as they had finished the last bottle of an excellent hogshead of Burgundy, which you sent into my cellar, I believe, seven years ago. What has come since we will avoid mentioning. A few bottles, however, of the former were reserved for the divine Charlotte, and she, and Caswell, and I have this day finished them; and the last glass went off to your health. Sister Charlotte wishes you public and private happiness during this bustling winter, and hopes that you are not determined to forsake the English part of your family for ever. I received your letter of the 24th here two days ago, and should most undoubtedly desire you to send me your votes, if I had not already engaged my old friend at the Secretary's office to do it; but I beg early intelligence of your parliamentary proceedings, about which I am very anxious. I do not believe there is the smallest foundation for believing that Junius is Wedderburn. I had, a few days ago, great reason to guess at the real Junius: but my intelligence was certainly false; for sending to inquire in a more particular manner, I discovered the person hinted at to be dead. He was an obscure man; and so will the real Junius turn out to be, depend upon it. Are Shannon and Ponsonby and Lanesborough still stout against Augmentation? or must the friends to the measure form a plan that they like themselves? A letter from Colonel Hall, of the 20th regiment, this evening, informs me that General Harvey is come from Ireland, and is very impatient to see me: if his business is to consult me upon the utility of this military plan, I am already fully convinced of it: but nobody knows less than I do how to get it through your House of Commons,—I only hope by any means rather than a message from the king. Perhaps the measure is taken, and I am writing treason against the understanding of our own ministers. God forbid! but I do not approve of letting down the dignity and power of the chief governors of Ireland lower than they are already fallen, to quarrel with a mountebank at a custard feast. Adieu, my dear little fellow.

      ISTHMUS OF DARIEN

      As public attention is now much directed to the canal across the Isthmus of Darien, one end of which is proposed to communicate with the harbour which was the site of the ill-fated attempt at colonisation by the Scotch about 150 years ago, the subjoined extract, giving an account of that harbour, by (apparently) one of the Scotch colonists, may be interesting to your readers. It is taken from a paper printed in Miscellanea Curiosa, vol. iii. p. 413., 2nd edit., entitled "Part of a Journal kept from Scotland to New Caledonia in Darien, with a short Account of that Country, communicated [to the Royal Society] by Dr. Wallace, F.R.S.":

      NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS

      Mechal is from the mint of Thomas Heywood; but, like many other words of the same stamp, it continued a private token of the party who issued it, and never, as far as I am aware, became current coin. Four times, at least, it occurs in his works; and always in that sense only which its etymon indicates, to wit, "adulterous." In his "Challenge for Beauty:"

      In his "Rape of Lucrece:"

      —where the editor's note is—"probably derived from the French word méchant, wicked." In his "English Traveller:"

      This misprint the editor corrects to mickle: professing, however, as he well might, distrust of his amendment. Nares discards Dilke's guess, and says, "If a right reading, it must be derived from mich, truant, adulterous." Whereby to correct one error he commits another, assigning to mich a sense that it never bears. If haply any doubt should remain as to what the true reading in the above passage is, a reference to Heywood's Various History concerninge Women will at once assoil it. In that part of his fourth book which treats of adulteresses (p. 195.), reciting the very story on which his play was founded, and calling it "a moderne historie lately happening, and in mine owne knowledge," he continues his narrative thus: