"Les frères, cousins, et petits cousins de lady Southampton l'attendaient, et les duels se mirent à lui pleuvoir dessus. Comme son épée aimait assez à luire au soleil, il la tira volontiers, et avec une chance telle que ses ennemis, ne pouvant le vaincre par le fer, jugèrent à propos d'essayer du poison. Dégouté de perdre son temps à de pareilles misères, &c. &c. Tant que le comte a vecu il en a eu grand soin; mais il mourut en Morée, et le page fidèle ne lui survécut pas long-temps. Elle est morte comme une sainte." Can you, or any of your correspondents, say _who_ this interesting _Countess of Southampton_ was? She lived at the end of the seventeenth century. In addition to these particulars, which are so nicely told that I would not venture to alter them, as Orsino asks Viola, "What was her history?" W. R. * * * * * Minor Queries. _Hardening Steel Bars._--Can any of your readers inform me how thin, flat, steel bars (say three feet long) can be prevented from "running" crooked when hardened in water? J. H. A. _Pierrepont._--Who was John Pierrepont of Wadworth, near Doncaster, who died July, 1653, aged 75. A. F. B. Diss. _Ceylon._--I should be much obliged to SIR JAMES TENNENT, if he would kindly inform me where the best map of Ceylon is to be got? such as are to be found in the atlases within my reach are only good enough to try a man's temper, and no more. May I also take the liberty of asking how soon we may expect the appearance of SIR JAMES TENNENT'S book on the history, &c. of Ceylon? a work which will be a great work indeed, if we have at all a fair specimen of its author's learning and powers in the _Christianity in Ceylon_. AJAX. _Flemish and Dutch Schools of Painting._--Would any of your correspondents direct me to some work giving me some information about the painters of the Dutch and Flemish schools, their biographers, their peculiarities, chefs-d'oeuvre, &c.? AJAX. "_To talk like a Dutch Uncle._"--In some parts of America, when a person has determined to give another a regular lecture, he will often be heard to say, "I will talk to him like a Dutch uncle;" that is, he shall not escape this time. As the emigrants to America from different countries have brought their national sayings with them, and as the one I am now writing about was doubtless introduced by the Knickerbockers, may I ask if a similar expression is now known or used in Holland? W. W. Malta. _Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Belgium_.--I want some work on this subject: can any one tell me of one? N.B.--A big book does not frighten me. AJAX. _Charter of Waterford._--I have a copy of the English translation of this charter, published in Kilkenny, with the following note, written in an old hand, on the title-page: