"To Lord John Russell are we indebted for that admirable definition of a proverb: 'The wisdom,' &c."--See Notes to Rogers's _Italy_, 1848. The date is added since, in an edition of 1842; this remark makes no part of the note on the line, "If but a sinew vibrate," &c. Q. T. _Ireland a bastinadoed Elephant_ (Vol. viii., p. 366.).--I venture to suggest whether this expression may not be something more than a bull, as [Old English W]. inclines to call it. If any one will look at a physical map of Ireland at some little distance, a very slight exercise of the "mind's eye" will serve to call up in the figure of that island the shape of a creature kneeling and in pain. Lough Foyle forms the eye; the coast from Bengore Head to Benmore Head the nose or snout; Belfast Lough the mouth; the coast below Donaghdee the chin; County Wexford the knees. The rest of the outline, according to the imagination of the observer, may assume that of an elephant, or something, perhaps, "very like a whale." Some fanciful observation of this kind may have suggested the otherwise unaccountable simile to Curran. POLONIUS. _Ennui_ (Vol. vii., p. 478.; Vol. viii., p. 377.).--The meaning of this admirable word is best gleaned from its root, viz. _nuit_. It is somewhat equivalent to the Greek [Greek: agrupnia], and signifies the sense of weariness with doing nothing. It gives the lie to the _dolce far niente_: vide Ps. cxxx. 6., and Job vii. 3, 4. _Ennui_ is closely allied to our _annoy_ or _annoyance_, through _noceo_, _noxa_, and their probable root _nox_, [Greek: nux.] It is precisely equivalent to the Latin _taedium_, which may be derived from _taeda_, which in the plural means a torch, and through that word may have a side reference to night, the _taedarum horae_: cf. Ps. xci. 5. The subject is worthy of strict inquiry on the part of comparative philologists. C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY. Birmingham. _Belle Sauvage_ (Vol. viii., p. 388.).--Your Philadelphian correspondent asks whether Blue Bell, Blue Anchor, &c., are corruptions of some other emblem, such as that which in London transformed _La Belle Sauvage_ into the _Bell Savage_. This is not the fact. The Bell Savage on Ludgate Hill was originally kept by one Isabella Savage. A cotemporary historian, writing of one of the leaders in a rebellion in the days of Queen {524} Mary, says, "He then sat down upon a stone opposite to Bell Savage's Inn." JAMES EDMESTON. Homerton. _History of York_ (Vol. viii., p. 125.).--There is a _History of York_, published in 1785 by Wilson and Spence, described to be an abridgment of Drake, which is in three volumes, and may be a later edition of the same work to which MR. ELLIOT alludes. F. T. M. 86. Cannon Street.