_Female Parish Clerk_ (Vol. viii., p. 338.).--The sexton of my parish, John Poffley, a man worthy of a place in Wordsworth's _Excursion_, was telling me but a few days ago, that his mother was the parish clerk for twenty-six years, and that he well remembers his astonishment as a boy, whenever {432} he happened to attend a neighbouring church service, to see a man acting in that capacity, and saying the responses for the people. JOHN JAMES. Avington Rectory, Hungerford. I have just seen an extract from "N. & Q." in one of our local papers, mentioning Elizabeth King as being clerk of the parish of Totteridge in 1802, and a question by Y. S. M. if there were any similar instance on record of a woman being a parish clerk? In answer to this Query, I beg to inform Y. S. M. that in the village of Misterton, Somerset, in which place I was born, a woman acted as clerk at my mother's wedding, my own baptism, and many years subsequently: I was born in 1822. WM. HIGGINS. _Bothy_ (Vol. ix., p. 305.).--For a familiar mention of this word (commonly spelt _Bothie_), your correspondent may be referred to the poem of _The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich_, a Long-Vacation Pastoral, by Arthur Hugh Clough, Oxford: Macpherson, 1848. The action of the poem is chiefly carried on at the Bothie, the situation of which is thus described (in hexameter verse): "There on the blank hill side, looking down through the loch to the ocean, There with a runnel beside, and pine trees twain before it, There with the road underneath, and in sight of coaches and steamers, Dwelling of David Mackaye, and his daughters Elspie and Bella, Sends up a volume of smoke the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich." This sort of verse, by the way, is thus humorously spoken of by Professor Wilson in his dedication, "to the King," of the twelfth volume of Blackwood (1822): "What dost thou think, my liege, of the metre in which I address thee? Doth it not sound very big, verse bouncing, bubble-and-squeaky, Rattling, and loud, and high, resembling a drum or a bugle-- Rub-a-dub-dub like the one, like t'other tantaratara? (It into use was brought of late by thy Laureate Doctor-- But, in my humble opinion, I write it better than he does) It was chosen by me as the longest measure I knew of, And, in praising one's King, it is right full measure to give him." CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A. _King's Prerogative and Hunting Bishops_ (Vol. ix., p. 247.).--The passage of Blackstone, referred to by the Edinburgh Reviewer, will be found in his _Commentaries_, vol. ii, p. 413., where reference is made to 4 [Cokes'] _Inst._ 309. See also the same volume of Blackstone, p. 427. It is evident that Bishop Jewel possessed his "muta canum." See a curious account of a visit to him by Hermann Falkerzhuemer, in the _Zurich Letters_, second series, pp. 84 &c. H. GOUGH. Lincoln's Inn.