Replies to Minor Queries:--Penkenol--Johnny Crapaud--Sir John Darnall--Bastides--Compositions under the Protectorate--Hoax on Sir Walter Scott--Statute of Limitations abroad--Lines on Crawfurd of Kilbirnie-- Swearing on a Skull--Rhymes on Places--The Silent Woman--Serpent with a human Head--Poem on the Burning of the Houses of Parliament--Large Families--Frebord-- Milton's (?) Epitaph--Can Bishops vacate their Sees?-- Sleekstone, Meaning of--Poems in the Spectator--Line on Franklin--St. Christopher--Lines on Woman--Burial-- Portrait of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland 545 MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, &c. 549 Books and Odd Volumes wanted 550 Notices to Correspondents 550 Advertisements 551 * * * * * Notes. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. Previous to receiving the appointment of Norroy King at Arms, Oldys wrote a short account of his own life, which is now in my possession; and as it contains some interesting particulars of his connexion with the Earl of Oxford, in the formation of the magnificent collection of manuscripts now in the British Museum, I have forwarded a copy of it, which you are at liberty to make use of, if suited to the pages of "N. & Q." "After my unfortunate adventures in the South Sea, my long and expensive law-suits for the recovery of my right, and five years' retirement to a nobleman's in the country, with whom I had been intimate in my youth, I became, in less than two years after my return to London, first known to the Earl of Oxford in the year 1731; when he invited me to show him my collections of MSS. Historical and Political, which had been the Earl of Clarendon's; my collections of Royal Letters, and other Papers of State; together with a very large collection of English heads in sculpture, which alone had taken me up some years to collect, at the expense of at least threescore pounds. All these, with the catalogues I drew up of them, at his lordship's request, I parted with to him for forty pounds, and the frequent intimations he gave me of a more substantial recompense hereafter, which intimations induced me to continue my historical researches, as what would render me most acceptable to him. Therefore I left off writing in the _Universal Spectator_, in which I had then published about twenty papers, and was proffered the sole supply thereof; which would have returned me fifty-two guineas per annum.