in lemon juice (of September last).”--“The Gassoc will take notes of the mining tools forgotten--also bullets too large, and no flints (as per No. 9, in sympathetic ink)--also the sea charts, sent instead of maps--consequent delay in march of troops--loss of fortress--to be attributed to _the Eagle_.” _The Eagle_, which at first had been taken for granted to be the Austrian eagle, was discovered to be Lord Oldborough. An eagle was his lordship’s crest, and the sea-charts, and the mining-tools, brought the sense home to him conclusively. It was plain that the Gassoc stood for some person who was inimical to Lord Oldborough, but who it could be was the question. Commissioner Falconer suggested, that for _Gassoc_, you should read _Gosshawk_; then, said he, “by finding what nobleman or gentleman has a gosshawk in his arms, you have the family name, and the individual is afterwards easily ascertained.” To the Heralds’-office the commissioner went a gosshawking, but after spending a whole day with the assistance of Garter king at arms, he could make nothing of his gosshawks, and he gave them up. He next presumed that there might be a mistake of one letter in the foreign spelling of the word, and that _Gassoc_ should be _Cassock_, and might then mean a certain bishop, who was known to be a particular enemy of Lord Oldborough. But still there were things ascribed to the Gassoc, which could not come within the jurisdiction or cognizance of the Cassock--and the commissioner was reluctantly obliged to give up the church. He next suggested, that not only one letter, but every letter in the word might be mistaken in the foreign spelling, and that _Gassoc_ might be the French or German written imitation of the oral sound of some English proper name. The commissioner supported this opinion very plausibly by citing many instances of the barbarous spelling of English names by foreigners: Bassompierre writes Jorchaux for York-house, Innimthort for Kensington; even in the polite memoirs of le Comte de Grammont, we have Soutkask for Southesk, and Warméstre for some English name not yet deciphered. Upon this hint the commissioner and Cunningham made anagrams of half the noble names in England, but in vain. Afterwards, recollecting that it was the fashion at one time even to pun in the coats of arms of the nobility, and in the choice of their mottos, he went to work again at the Heralds’-office, and tried a course of puns, but to no purpose: the commissioner was mortified to find all his ingenuity at fault. Cunningham took care not to suggest anything, therefore he could never be convicted of mistake. Nor was he in the least vexed by his father’s or his own fruitless labour, because he thought it might tend to his future advancement.