"When Mr. Thorowgood saw his friend Lindsey come into his yard, his horse and himself just tired, in a sort of amaze he said, 'How, now, Colonel; we hear there is like to be a battle shortly. What! fled from your colours?' 'A battle!' said y^e other; 'yes, there has bin a battle, and I am sure y^e King is beaten. If ever I strike a stroke for Cromwell again, may I perish eternally, for I am sure he has made a league with y^e Devil, and he will have him in due time.' Then, desiring his protection from Cromwell's inquisitors, he went in & related y^e whole story, and all the circumstances, concluding with these remarkable words, That Cromwell w'd certainly die that day seven year that the battle was fought. "The strangeness of his relation caused Mr. Thorowgood to order his son John, then about 12 years of age, to write it in full length in his common place book, & to take it from Lindsey's own mouth. This common place book, and likewise y^e same story writen in other books, I am sure is still preserv'd in y^e family of y^e Thorowgoods: But how far Lindsey is to be believed, & how far y^e story is to be accounted incredible, is left to y^e reader's faith and judgment, & not to any determination of our own." * * * * * Replies to Minor Queries. _Gig Hill_ (Vol. iii., p. 222.).--Perhaps your correspondent is mistaken in saying that "there is no indication of anything in the land to warrant the name." At least, the very fact of its being a hill is suspicious. If I could venture to affront you with a pun, I should say, that it seems to me very natural that the _top_ of a hill should look like a _gig_. Mercy on us! do words wear out so fast? Why, I have not reached three-score, and did not I "whip my gig" when I was an "infant"?--not an infant born in a remote province, sucking in archaism with my mother's milk, playing with heirloom toys, and calling them by obsolete names, but a smart little cockney, born and bred in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, where, no doubt, there were gig-whipping brats plenty. In the crowded state of your columns, you would not thank me for enlarging on the top-_hic_, or I should really feel disposed to enter into a dissertation on the nature and characteristic differences of whipping-tops, humming-tops, peg-tops, and gigs. As to the latter, it certainly occurs to me, now that the question is raised, that I have not seen such a thing for a long time; though I fancy _gigs_ lying in the shop-windows, as they did at a period when I was more likely to observe them; and if they have become so far forgotten, it may be worth while, for the sake of Shakspeare, to say that they were generally (as far as I remember always) made of horn; and therefore, when Holofernes says "Go, whip thy gig" (which means just the same as Mr. Oldbuck's "Sew your sampler, monkey!"), Moth replies, "Lend me your _horn_ to make one, and I