_Abolition of Government Patronage._--The following passage, from Dr. Middleton's _Dedication of the Life of Cicero_ to Lord Keeper Hervey, is {467} interesting as showing the enlightened sentiments of an eminent scholar a hundred years ago when addressing a minister of the crown: "Human nature has ever been the same in all ages and nations, and owes the difference of its improvements to a difference only of culture, and of the rewards proposed to its industry; where these are the most amply provided, there we shall always find the most numerous and shining examples of human perfection. In old Rome, the public honours were laid open to the virtue of every citizen; which, by raising them in their turns to the commands of that mighty empire, produced a race of nobles superior even to kings. This was a prospect that filled the soul of the ambitious and roused every facility of mind and body to exert its utmost force; whereas, in modern states, men's views being usually confined to narrow bounds, beyond which they cannot pass, and a partial culture of their talents being sufficient to procure everything that their ambition can aspire to, a great genius has seldom either room or invitation to stretch itself to its full size." ALPHA. Oxford. * * * * * Minor Queries. "_One New Year's Day._"--An old lady used to amuse my childhood by singing a song commencing-- "One New Year's day, as I've heard say, Dick mounted on his dappled grey," &c. The rest I forget, but I should be glad to know if it is extant, and what is known of its origin, &c. G. WILLIAM SKYRING. Somerset House. _Greek denounced by the Monks._-- "Almost the time (A.D. 1530) when the monks preached in their sermons to the people to beware of a new tongue of late discovered, called the Greek, and the mother of all heresies."--_Foreign Quarterly_ for October, 1842, No. 59. p. 137. Can any of your readers give references to such passages in Monkish sermons? CPL.