_Cæsarius, &c._--No facts have yet occurred to convince me but that all prophecies are stuff; by no means excepting those which Dr. Gregory printed in _Blackwood for 1850_, and from which (more strange) he is unweaned in 1851. Seeing that you have reprinted (Vol. iv., p. 471.) the prophecy falsely ascribed to that ancient Latin father, Cæsarius Arelatensis, I beg leave to mention that I published in the _British Magazine for 1846_ an historical and chronological explanation of that modern forgery, as well as of the far more ancient predictions ascribed to Queen Basina. Thomas of Ercildoun was anterior in date to the pseudo-Cæsarius, and borrowed the idea of _his_ French revolution from Basina's, if, indeed, that prophecy be authentically from his pen, of which the proofs are very slender. See it quoted in Walter Scott's _Poet. Works_, vi. p. 236., ed. 1820. I wish to be informed in what sense, and for what reason, Walter Scott in the same page calls the prophecy-man Robert Fleming, "Mass Robert Fleming." A. N. _Tripos_ (Vol. iv., p. 484.).--The original _tripos_, from which the Cambridge class lists have derived their names, was _a three-legged stool_, on which on Ash Wednesday a Bachelor of one or two years' standing (called therefrom the _Bachelor of the Stool_) used formerly to take his seat, and play the part of public disputant in the quaint proceedings which accompanied admission to the degree of B.A. In course of time the name was transferred from the stool to him that sat on it, and the disputant was called the _Tripos_; and thence by successive steps it passed to the _day_ when the three-legged stool became "for the nonce" a post of honour; then to the _lists_ published on that day, containing the seniority of commencing B.A.s arranged according to the pleasure of the Proctors; and ultimately it obtained the enlarged meaning now universally recognised, according to which it stands for the examination whether in mathematics, classics, moral or physical science, as well as the list by which the result of that examination is made known. The Latin verses which do, or till very lately did, accompany the printed lists, and which it was expected were to partake more or less of a burlesque character, are the only existing relics of the functions of the _Bachelor of the Stool_ (performed in 1556/7 by Abp. Whitgift), to whom, as to the _Prævaricator_ at commencements, or the _Terræ Filius_ at Oxford, considerable license of language was allowed; a privilege which, in spite of the exhortation of the Father (see Bedle Buck's book) "to be witty but modest withal," was not unfrequently abused. Those who desire further information on this subject may consult the appendixes to Dean Peacock's admirable work _On the Statutes of the University_, pp. ix. x. lxx. E. V.