_Meals._--On the N.W. coast of Norfolk are certain sandbanks so called. Brancaster Meals, Blakeney Meals, and Wells Meals are among those most dreaded by the mariner. In Bailey's _Dictionary_ occurs, "_Meales, Malls._ The shelves or banks of sand on the sea-coasts of Norway." Can Norway be a misprint for Norfolk? It occurs Norway in ten or twelve editions of Bailey which I have examined. I can find no mention of "meals" or "malls" in any map of Norway, {209} except the whirlpool, the Maelström, be connected with it. In Norfolk _ea_, _ee_ are frequently changed for _oa_, _oo_. Thus "sheaf" and "reek" are in Norfolk "shoaf" and "roke;" and "smeath," a table land, is evidently from "smooth." Can this change of vowels have taken place in this word, and "meals" signify "moles," from the shelf of sand projecting like a mole? or can any correspondent suggest a better etymology? E. G. R. [The quotation given above is omitted in the folio edition of Bailey, 1736; but is correctly given in Phillips's _New World of Words_:--"MEALES, or MALES, the shelves or banks of sand on the sea-coasts of _Norfolk_: whence Ingom-meals, the name of a sandy shore in Lincolnshire." The word _Meales_, or _Malls_, is however obviously connected with the Icelandic _Möl_, which Helmboe, in his recently-published work, _Det Norske Sprogs_, &c., defines "coarse sand; a sandy or stony place."] _Haughmond Abbey, Salop._--I should feel obliged for any particulars of the history, or a reference to any work that contains a full account, of these fine ruins. Hulbert does not give by any means a detailed notice in his _History of Salop_. SALOPIAN. [Some account of this abbey, with two engraved views of it, will be found in the _Beauties of England and Wales_, vol. xiii. part i. pp. 179-82. Consult also Dugdale's _Monasticon_, vol. vi. p. 107.] "_As flies to wanton boys._"--Can you inform me from what writer is the following quotation (in Mary Wolstoncraft's _Travels in Sweden_)?-- "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." J. P. [Shakspeare's _King Lear_, Act IV. Sc. 1.] _Quotation wanted._--Who is the author of the following lines?-- "Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn: The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she joined the former two." Of course it is obvious who were the three poets, the greatest the world has produced. A. S. A. Wuzzeerabad. [These lines are by Dryden, and are frequently prefixed to _Paradise Lost_. They are little more than a translation of a distich by Salvaggi:-- "Græcia Mæonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem: Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem."]