"18th, Went to Beverley, a large town with two churches, St. John's and St. Mary's, not much inferior to the best of our cathedrals. Here a very old woman showed us the monuments, and being above 100 years of age, spake _the language of Queen Mary's days_, in whose time she was born; she was widow of a sexton, who had belonged to the church a hundred years." Will any of your readers inform me what was the language spoken in _Queen Mary's_ days, and what peculiarity distinguished it from the language used in _Evelyn's_ days? A learned author has suggested, that the difference arose from the slow progress in social improvement in the North of England, caused by the difficulty of communication with the court and its refinements. I am still anxious to ascertain what the difference was. FRA. MEWBURN. Darlington. _Vault Interments_.--I shall be very glad of any information as to the origin and date of the practice of depositing coffins in vaults, and whether this custom obtains in any other country than our own. WALTER LEWIS. Edward Street, Portman Square. _Archbishop Williams' Persecutor, R.K._--Any information will be thankfully received of the ancestors, collaterals, or descendants, of the notorious R.K.--the unprincipled persecutor of Archbp. Williams, mentioned in Fuller's _Church Hist._, B. xi. cent. 17.; and in Hacket's Life of the Archbishop (abridgment), p. 190. F.K. _The Sun feminine in English_.--It has been often remarked, that the northern nations made the sun to be feminine.[3] Do any of your readers know any instances of the _English_ using this gender of the sun? I have found the following:-- "So it will be at that time with the sun; for though _she_ be the brightest and clearest creature, above all others, yet, for all that Christ with His glory and majesty will obscure _her."--Latimer's Works_, Parker Soc. edit. vol. ii. p. 54. "Not that the sun itself, of _her_ substance, shall be darkened; no, not so; for _she_ shall give _her_ light, but it shall not be seen for this great light and clearness wherein our Saviour shall appear."--(Ib. p. 98.) THOS. COX. [Footnote 3: See Latham's _English Language_, 2nd edition, p. 211] _Construe and translate_.--In my school-days, verbal rendering from Latin or Greek into English was _construing_; the same on paper was _translating_. Whence this difference of phrase? M. _Men but Children of a larger growth_.--Can you give one the author of the following line? "Men are but children of a larger growth." R.G. _Clerical Costume_.--In the Diary of the Rev. Giles Moore, rector of Hosted Keynes, in Sussex, published in the first volume of the Sussex Archæological Collections, there is the following account of his dress:-- "I went to Lewis and bought 4 yards of broad black cloth at 16s. the yard, and two yards and 1/2 of scarlet serge for a waistcoat, 11s. 1d., and 1/4 of an ounce of scarlet silke, 1s."