Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 | Page 4

at the Secretary's office to do it; but I beg early intelligence of your parliamentary proceedings, about which I am very anxious. I do not believe there is the smallest foundation for believing that Junius is Wedderburn. I had, a few days ago, great reason to guess at the real Junius: but my intelligence was certainly false; for sending to inquire in a more particular manner, I discovered the person hinted at to be dead. He was an obscure man; and so will the real Junius turn out to be, depend upon it. Are Shannon and Ponsonby and Lanesborough still stout against Augmentation? or must the friends to the measure form a plan that they like themselves? A letter from Colonel Hall, of the 20th regiment, this evening, informs me that General Harvey is come from Ireland, and is very impatient to see me: if his business is to consult me upon the utility of this military plan, I am already fully convinced of it: but nobody knows less than I do how to get it through your House of Commons,--I only hope by any means rather than a message from the king. Perhaps the measure is taken, and I am writing treason against the understanding of our own ministers. God forbid! but I do not approve of letting down the dignity and power of the chief governors of Ireland lower than they are already fallen, to quarrel with a mountebank at a custard feast. Adieu, my dear little fellow.
Yours ever, most sincerely, R. R.
[Footnote 1: T. Andrews, Provost of Trin. Col., Dublin.]
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ISTHMUS OF DARIEN.
As public attention is now much directed to the canal across the Isthmus of Darien, one end of which is proposed to communicate with the harbour which was the site of the ill-fated attempt {352} at colonisation by the Scotch about 150 years ago, the subjoined extract, giving an account of that harbour, by (apparently) one of the Scotch colonists, may be interesting to your readers. It is taken from a paper printed in Miscellanea Curiosa, vol. iii. p. 413., 2nd edit., entitled "Part of a Journal kept from Scotland to New Caledonia in Darien, with a short Account of that Country, communicated [to the Royal Society] by Dr. Wallace, F.R.S.":
"The 4th [November] we came into the great harbour of Caledonia. It is a most excellent one; for it is about a league in length from N.W. to S.E. It is about half a mile broad at the mouth, and in some places a mile and more farther in. It is large enough to contain 500 sail of ships. The greatest part of it is landlocked, so that it is safe, and cannot be touched by any wind that can blow the harbour; and the sea makes the land that lies between them a peninsula. There is a point of the peninsula at the mouth of the harbour that may be fortified against a navy. This point secures the harbour, so that no ship can enter but must be within reach of their guns. It likewise defends half of the peninsula; for no guns from the other side of the harbour can touch it, and no ship carrying guns dare enter for the breastwork at the point. The other side of the peninsula is either a precipice, or defended against ships by shoals and breaches, so that there remains only the narrow neck that is naturally fortified; and if thirty leagues of a wilderness will not do that, it may be artificially fortified in twenty ways. In short, it may be made impregnable; and there are bounds enough within it, if it were all cultivated, to afford 10,000 hogsheads of sugar every year. The soil is rich, the air good and temperate; the water is sweet, and every thing contributes to make it healthful and convenient."
C. T. W.
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NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.
Mechal is from the mint of Thomas Heywood; but, like many other words of the same stamp, it continued a private token of the party who issued it, and never, as far as I am aware, became current coin. Four times, at least, it occurs in his works; and always in that sense only which its etymon indicates, to wit, "adulterous." In his "Challenge for Beauty:"
"... her own tongue Hath publish'd her a mechall prostitute." Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. vi. p. 421.
In his "Rape of Lucrece:"
"... that done, straight murder One of thy basest grooms, and lay you both Grasp'd arm in arm in thy adulterate bed, Men call in witness of that mechall sin." Old English Drama, vol. i. p. 71.
--where the editor's note is--"probably derived from the French word m��chant, wicked." In his "English Traveller:"
"... Yet whore you may; And that's no breach of