REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--Mary Queen of Scots' Gold Cross--Jennings Family--Adamson's "England's Defence"-- Chief Justice Thomas Wood--Aldiborontiphoscophornio-- Statue of St. Peter at Rome--Old Silver Ornament-- "Plurima, pauca, nihil"--"Pork-pisee" and "Wheale"--Did the Carians use Heraldic Devices?--Herbert Family-- Children crying at Baptism, &c. 95 MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, &c. 97 Books and Odd Volumes wanted 98 Notices to Correspondents 98 Advertisements 99 * * * * * Notes. BLACKGUARD. In some of the earlier numbers of "N. & Q.," there occur disquisitions as to the origin of the term _blackguard_, and the time at which it came into use in England in its present sense. But the communications of your correspondents have not been satisfactory upon either point--they have not shown the period at which the word came to be accepted _in its present sense_; and their quotations all apply to its use in a much more simple meaning, and one totally different from that which we now attach to it. One class of these quotations (Vol. ii., pp. 171. 285.), such as the passages from BUTLER and FULLER, refer obviously to a popular superstition, during an age when the belief in witchcraft and hobgoblins was universal; and when such creatures of fancy were assigned as _Black Guards_ to his Satanic majesty. "Who can conceive," says FULLER in the paragraph extracted, "but that such a Prince-principal of Darkness must be proportionally attended by a Black Guard of monstrous opinions?" (_Church History_, b. ix. c. xvi.) And in the verses of BUTLER referred to, Hudibras, when deceived by Ralpho counterfeiting a ghost in the dark,-- "Believed it was some drolling sprite That _staid upon the guard_ at night:" and thereupon in his trepidation discourses with the Squire as follows: