"Tony Alsop, editor of the _Æsopian Fables_;" a work published by him at
Oxford, in 1698, 8 vo., in the preface to which he took part against Dr.
Bentley, in the dispute with Mr. Boyle.

J.I.

Trinity College, Oxford.

* * * * *


REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.


_Origin of the Word "Snob"_.--I think that _Snob_ is not an archaism,
and that it cannot be found in any book printed fifty years ago. I am
aware that in the north of England shoe-makers are still sometimes
called _Snobs_; but the word is not in Brockett's _Glossary of North
Country Words_, which is against its being a genuine bit of northern
dialect.

I fancy that _Snobs_ and _Nobs_, as used in vulgar parlance, are of
classic derivation; and, most probably, originated at one of the
Universities, where they still flourish. If a _Nob_ be one who is
_nobilis_, a _Snob_ must be one who is _s[ine] nob[ilitate]_. Not that I
mean to say that the _s_ is literally a contraction of _sine_; but that,
as in the word slang, the _s_, which is there prefixed to _language_, at
once destroys the better word, and degrades its meaning; and as, in
Italian, an _s_ prefixed to a primitive word has a privative
effect--e.g. _calzare_, "to put on shoes and stockings;" _scalzare_, "to