As a proof, _quantum valeat_, that the _Castle fogies_ were so called for some other reason than merely because of their being "old folks," I may mention that there was in Edinburgh, for more than a century, another body of veterans, called the Town Guard, or City Guard, maintained by the magistrates as a sort of military police, or gendarmerie, and finally disbanded in 1817. This corps was generally recruited from old soldiers; and during the period of my acquaintance with them (9½ years) they were all aged, and some of them very old men; yet I never heard the word _fogies_ applied to them. On the contrary, they were always distinguished from the fogies by the elegant appellation of the "Toon Rottens," or Town Rats, as well as by their facings, which were _dark blue_. Some, indeed, of my younger friends, who remember the "Rats" very well, say they never heard of the "Fogies" at all; only one of them, who lived when a boy at the Castle Hill, perhaps about forty years ago, recollects of the word "fogie" as being then applied to the soldiers of the ordinary veteran or garrison battalions, with blue facings, that had superseded the fogies in the keeping of the Castle; but of the veritable apple-green fogies of the older establishment, he has no remembrance. As my own recollections of Edinburgh go back to 1808, the fogies, I presume, must have been by that time extinct, for I never saw any of them, though I frequently heard them spoken of by those who had seen them. I may mention also that while "fogie" was in use, and of well understood application in Scotland, {155} the phrase "old folks," or, to write it according to our vernacular pronunciation, "auld fo'k," was also, and continues to be, in general and familiar use; but nobody in Scotland, I dare say, ever imagined that "the auld fo'k" of his ordinary acquaintance were just "old fogies," or had anything whatever to do with that peculiar class of men, properly so called, the keepers of the royal castles. It is most remarkable, also, that while the corrupt derivative, as MR. KEIGHTLEY says "old fogie" is, has been almost quite forgotten among us, having disappeared with the men that bore the name of fogies, the parent form, as he would have "old folks" or "auld fo'k" to be, should remain in full vigour and common use, as part of our living speech. In a word, from all I can learn it would appear that the word "fogie," in its most general acceptation, means by itself, without the "old," an old soldier; and that "old fogie" is only a tautological form, arising from ignorance of its meaning. Be its origin, however, what it may, I have no hesitation now in expressing my conviction that MR. KEIGHTLEY'S etymology of the word is utterly groundless. J. L. City Chambers, Edinburgh. * * * * * DESCENDANTS OF JOHN OF GAUNT. (Vol. vii., p. 628.)