_stone_, a bank in a valley. The word may, however, be derived from
some man's name, though I can find none at all like it in a long list
of tenants upon Hackney Manor that I have searched. If any of your
readers can furnish this information they will much oblige.

H.C. DE ST. CROIX.


_"Brown Study"_--a term generally applied to intense reverie. Why
"brown," rather than blue or yellow? _Brown_ must be a corruption of
some word. Query of "barren," in the sense of fruitless or useless?

D.V.S.


_Coal Brandy_.--People now old can recollect that, when young, they
heard people then old talk of "coal-brandy." What was this? _Cold_?
or, in modern phase, _raw_, _neat_, or _genuine_?

CANTAB.


_Swot_.--I have often heard military men talk of _swot_, meaning
thereby mathematics; and persons eminent in that science are termed
"_good swots_." As I never heard the word except amongst the military,
but there almost universally in "free and {353} easy," conversation,
I am led to think it a cant term. At any rate, I shall be glad to be
informed of its origin,--if it be not lost in the mists of soldierly
antiquity.