witness without exception_."

Dr. Johnson was not so laudatory:--"Burnet is very entertaining. The
style, indeed, is mere chit-chat. I do not believe that he intentionally
lied; but he was so much prejudiced, that he took no pains to find out
the truth."

The reader may refer to Dr. Hickes's _Criticism_ (Atterbury's
_Correspondence_, i. 492.). Calamy's expression is a significant, if not
a very complimentary one, as regards Burnet's candour (_Life and Times_,
i. 59.).

I.H.M.

Bath, Dec. 1849.

_Viz., why the contracted form of Videlicet._

I shall be much obliged if any one of your readers can inform me of the
_principle_ of the contraction viz. for videlicet, the letter _z_ not
being at all a component part of the three final syllables in the full
world.

[Cross symbol]

[Is not our correspondent a little mistaken in supposing that the
last letter in "viz." as originally a letter z? Was it not one of
the arbitrary marks of contraction used by the scribes of the
middle ages, and being in form something like a "z," came to be
represented by the early printers by that letter? In short, the