_Tickhill, God help me_.--Can any one tell why A Tickhill man, when
asked where he comes from, says, "Tickhill, God help me." Is it because
the people at Tickhill are famed for misery, as the neighbouring town of
Blythe seems to have been so called from its jolly citizens?

R.F. JOHNSON.


_Bishop Blaize_.--I should be much obliged by any reference to
information respecting Bishop Blaize, the Santo Biagio of Agrigentum,
and patron saint of Ragusa. Butler says little but that he was bishop of
Sebaste, in Armenia, the proximity of which place to Colchis appears to
me suspicious. Wonderful and horrible tales are told of him; but I
suspect his patronage of wool-combers is founded on much more ancient
legends. His establishment at Agrigentum must have been previous to
Christianity. I have a vague remembrance of some mention of him in
Higgins's _Anacalypsis_, but I have not now access to that work. I wish
some learned person would do for other countries what Blunt has partly
done for Italy and Sicily; that is, show the connection between heathen
and Christian customs, &c.

F.C.B.


_Vox et præterea nihil._--Whence come these oft-quoted words? Burton, in
_The Anatomy of Melancholy_ (not having the book by me, I am unable to
give a reference), quotes them as addressed by some one to the
nightingale. Wordsworth addresses the cuckoo similarly, vol. ii. p.
81.:--