[cross] "PRIMO . DITIONIS . NOSTRAE . FINES . TAMESIN . EVEHVNTOR . INDE . LEAM . VSQVE . FONTEM . EJVS . TAM . RECTA . AD . BEDFORDIAM . AC . DENIQVE . PER . VSAM . AD . VIAM . VETE . LINTIANAM." _Wordsworth._--In Wordsworth's touching "Lament of Mary Queen of Scots," one of the stanzas opens with: "_Born all too high; by wedlock rais'd_ _Still higher_, to be brought thus low!" Is it straining a point to suppose that the author has here translated the opening words of the well-known epitaph on the Empress Matilda, mother of our Henry II.? "_Ortu magna; viro major_; sed maxima prole; Hic jacet Henrici filia, sponsa, parens." A. W. Sunningdale. "_Magna est Veritas et praevalebit._"--I was asked the other day whence came this hackneyed quotation. It is taken from the uncanonical Scriptures, 3 Esdras iv. 41.: "Et desiit loquendo: Et omnes populi clamaverunt, et dixerunt: Magna est veritas, et _praevalet_." T. H. DE H. "_Putting your Foot into it._"--The legitimate origin of this term I have seen thus explained. Perhaps it may pass as correct until a better be found. According to the _Asiatic Researches_, a very curious mode of trying the title to land is practised in Hindostan. Two holes are dug in the disputed spot, in each of which the lawyers on either side put one of their legs, and remain there until one of them is tired, or complains of being stung by insects, in which case his client is defeated. An American writer has remarked that in the United States it is generally the _client_, and not the _lawyer_, "who puts his foot in it." W. W. Malta. * * * * * Queries. FRAGMENTS OF MSS. Dr. Maitland, in his valuable volume on the "Dark Ages," has the following remarks on a subject which I think has not met with the attention it deserves: "Those who are in the habit of looking at such things, know how commonly early printed books, whose binding has undergone the analytical operation of damp, or mere old age, disclose the under end pieces of beautiful and ancient manuscript. They know how freely parchment was used for backs and bands, and fly-leaves, and even for covers. The thing is so common, that those who are accustomed to see old books _have ceased to notice it_."