Macaulay says, "I think that Titus Oates was as uneven as a
badger?"
W.R.F.
_Ecclesiastical Year_.--_Note_ in an old parish register, A.D. 1706.
"Annus Domini Secundum Ecclesiae Anglicanae Supputationem incipit 25to
Mensis Martij."
_Query_ the _authority_ for this? the _reason_ seems easy to define.
NATHAN.
_Sir William Coventry_.--Pepys mentions in his _Diary_, that Sir
William Conventry kept a journal of public events. Is anything known
of this journal? It is not known of at Longleat, where are several
papers of Sir William Conventry's.
A MS. letter from Lord Weymouth to Sir Robert Southwell, giving an
account of Sir W. Conventry's death, was sold at the sale of Lord de
Clifford's papers in 1834. Can any of your readers inform me where
this letter now is?
C.
_Shrew_.--Is _shrew_, as applied to the shrew-mouse, and as applied to
a scolding woman, the same word? If so, what is its derivation?
The following derivations of the word are cited by Mr. Bell. _Saxon_,
"Schreadan," to cut; "Schrif," to censure; "Scheorfian," to bite;
"Schyrvan," to beguile. _German_, "Schreiven," to clamour; none of
which, it is obvious, come very near to "Schreava," the undoubted
Saxon origin of the word shrew.
Now it was a custom amongst our forefathers to endeavour to provide
a remedy against the baneful influence of the shrew-mouse by plugging
the wretched animal alive in a hole made in the body of an ash tree,
any branch of which was thenceforth held to be possessed of a power to
cure the disease caused by the mouse.
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