"When she speaks, is it not an _alarum_ to love?"
_Othello_.

"But when he saw my _best-alarum'd_ spirits roused
to the encounter."--_Lear_.

In all these cases _alarum_ means incitement, not _alarm_ in the
secondary or metaphorical sense of the word, which has now become the
ordinary one. In truth, the meanings, though of identical origin, have
become almost contradictions: for instance, in the passage from
_Othello_, an "alarum to love"--incitement to love--is nearly the
reverse of what an "alarm to love" would be taken to mean.

C.


_Practice of Scalping among the Scythians, &c_. (Vol. ii., p.
141.).--Your correspondent T.J. will find in Livy, x. 26., that the
practice of scalping existed among the Kelts.

"Nec ante ad consules ... famam ejus cladis perlatam, quam in
conspectu fuere Gallorum equites pectoribus equorurn suspensa
gestantes capita, et lanceis infixa ovantesque moris sui
carmine."

W.B.D.


_Gospel Tree_ (Vol. ii., p. 56.).--In reply to W.H.B., I may mention