smooth-tongued Normans. The harsh Saxon Schrobbesbyrigschire, or
Shropshire, was by them softened into le Comté de Salop, and both names
are still used.

BENJ. H. KENNEDY.

Shrewsbury, Feb. 2. 1850.

* * * * *

LACEDÆMONIAN BLACK BROTH.

If your readers are not already as much disgusted with Spartan Black
Broth as Dionysius was {243} with the first mouthful, I beg leave to
submit a few supplementary words to the copious indications of your
correspondents "R.O." and "W."

Selden says:--

"It was an excellent question of Lady Cotton, when Sir Robert
Cotton was magnifying of a shoe, which was Moses's or Noah's, and
wondering at the strange shape and fashion of it: 'But, Mr.
Cotton,' says she, '_are you sure it is a shoe?_'"

Now, from the following passage in Manso's _Sparta_, it would seem that
a similar question might be put on the present occasion: _Are you sure
that it was broth?_ Speaking of the _pheiditia_, Manso says:--

"Each person at table had as much barley-bread as he could eat;
swine's-flesh, or some other meat, to eat with it, with which the