Who was _Honoria_? and are these _essays_ a scarce book in England? In
France it is entirely unknown to the numerous commentators on
Montaigne's works.

O.D.

_Custom of wearing the Breast uncovered in Elizabeth's Reign._--Fynes
Moryson, in a well-known passage of his _Itinerary_, (which I suppose I
need not transcribe), tells us that unmarried females and young married
women wore the breasts uncovered in Queen Elizabeth's reign. This is the
custom in many parts of the East. Lamartine mentions it in his pretty
description of Mademoiselle Malagambe: he adds, "it is the custom of the
Arab females." When did this curious custom commence in England, and
when did it go out of fashion?

JARLTZBERG.

_Milton's Lycidas._--In a Dublin edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_
(1765), in a memoir prefixed I find the following explanation of than
rather obscure passage in _Lycidas_:--

"Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw,
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

"This poem is not all made up of sorrow and tenderness, there is
a mixture of satire and indignation: for in part of it, the poet
taketh occasion to inveigh against the corruptions of the
clergy, and seemeth to have first discovered his acrimony