_Horns._--For answer to the third Query of "L.C." (No. 24. p. 383.), I
subscribe the following, from Coleridge:--

"Having quoted the passage from Shakspeare,

"'Take thou no scorn
To wear the horn, the lusty horn;
It was a crest ere thou wert born."

_As You Like It_, Act iv. sc. 2.

"I question (he says), whether there exists a parallel instance of a
phrase, that, like this of 'Horns,' is universal in all languages, and
yet for which no one has discovered even a plausible origin."--_Literary
Remains_, vol. i. p. 120. Pickering, 1849.

ROBERT SNOW.


_Coal Brandy_ (No. 22. p. 352.).--This is only a contraction of "coaled
brandy," that is, "burnt brandy," and has no reference to the _purity_
of the spirit. It was the "universal pectoral" of the last century; and
more than once I have seen it prepared by "good housewives" and
"croaking husbands" in the present, pretty much as directed in the
following prescription. It is only necessary to remark, that the
orthodox method of "coaling," or setting the brandy on fire, was
effected by dropping "a live coal" ("_gleed_") or red-hot cinder into
the brandy. This is copied from a leaf of paper, on the other side of
which are written, in the hand of John Nourse, the great publisher of
scientific books in his day, some errata in the first 8vo. edit. of