The same worthy citizen was once sheriff of Norwich, and, as is, or haply was, the custom,--for I know not how these matters are managed now-a-days,--went forth in civic state to meet the judges of assize. When their lordships were seated in the sheriff's carriage, one of them charitably observed, "Yours, I believe, is a very ancient city, Mr. Sheriff!" to which the latter, a little flurried, no doubt, at being thus so pointedly addressed, but in decided accents, replied, "It _was_ ONCE, my Lord!" And without stopping to consider what was passing in his mind when he gave utterance to these somewhat ambiguous words, may we not take them up, and ask whether it be not even so, not only as regards Norwich, but most of her venerable sister towns as well? Where are their quondam glories--their arts and rare inventions--their "thoughts in antique words conveyed"--their "boast of heraldry"--their pageantries and shows? Where their high-peaked gables--their curiously wrought eaves and overhanging galleries--their quaint doorways, so elaborately carved, and all their other cunning devices?--"Modern Taste," with finger pointed to the newest creation of her plaster genius, triumphantly echoes the monosyllable, and answers, "Where?" Well, we are perforce content; only with this proviso:--if, fatigued with the tinselled superficialities and glossy refinements of the present, we are fain to "cast one longing lingering look behind," and chance to light upon some worthy illustrative memorial of the literature, the manners, or domestic life of the past,--that the spirit of Captain Cuttle's sage advice be made our own, and that we forthwith transfer our prize for the critical examination of "diving antiquaries" to the conservative pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES." COWGILL. _The Tanthony._--Will your correspondent ARUN permit one to refer him to an authority for the use of the word "Tanton" for St. Anthony? An hospital in York, dedicated to St. Anthony, after the dissolution came into the possession of a gild or fraternity of a master and eight keepers, who were commonly called "Tanton Pigs." Vide Drake's _Eboracum_, p. 315. Δ. _Tanthony Bell at Kimbolton._--"Tanthony" is from St. Anthony. In Hampshire the small pig of the litter (in Essex called "the cad") is, or once was, called "the Tanthony pig." Pigs were especially under this saint's care. The ensign of the order of St. Anthony of Hainault was a collar of gold made like a hermit's girdle; at the centre thereof hung a crutch and a small bell of gold. St. Anthony is styled, among his numerous titles, "Membrorum restitutor," and "Dæmonis fugator:" hence the bell. "The Egyptians have none but wooden bells, except one brought by the Franks into the monastery of St. Anthony."--Rees' _Cyclopædia_, art. Bell.