Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 | Page 8

I wish merely to put one or two Queries, which have
been suggested to me by the fact that extradition is now generally
employed as an English word.

1. Is there any contingency in which the meaning of the word
extradition may not be sufficiently expressed by the verb to deliver up,
or the substantive restitution?
2. If so, how has its place been supplied heretofore in our diplomatic
correspondence?
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia, Dec. 1850.
Singing of Metrical Psalms and Hymns in Churches.--1. When and how
did the custom of singing metrical psalms and hymns in churches
originate? 2. By what authority was it sanctioned? 3. At what parts of
the service were these psalms and hymns directed to be introduced? 4.
Was this custom contemplated by the compilers of the Book of
Common Prayer?
ARUN.
Ormonde Portraits.--I shall feel much obliged by information on the
following points:--
1. Whether any portrait of Thomas Earl of Ormonde has been published?
He died in the year 1614.
2. How many engraved portraits of Thomas, the famous Lord Ossory,
have been issued? their dates, and the engravers' names.
3. How many engraved portraits of the first and second Dukes of
Ormonde, respectively, have appeared? their dates, and engravers'
names.
JAMES GRAVES.
Kilkenny, Jan. 31. 1851.
Tradescant.--In the inscription on the tomb of the Tradescants in
Lambeth churchyard, which it is proposed to restore as soon as possible,

these two lines occur:
"These famous antiquarians, that had been Both gardeners to the Rose
and Lily queen."
Can any of your readers inform me when the elder Tradescant came
over to England, and when he was appointed royal gardener? Was it not
in the reign of Elizabeth?
J. C. B.
Lambeth.
Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Craigs.--L. M. M. R. is very anxious to be
informed as to the origin of the name of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury
Craigs, the well-known hill and rocks close to Edinburgh.
Lincoln Missal.--Is a manuscript of the missal, according to the use of
the church of Lincoln, known to exist? and, if so, where may it be seen?
EDWARD PEACOCK, JUN.
* * * * *
Replies.
MEANING OF EISELL.
(Vol. iii., p. 66.)
I must beg a very small portion of your space to reply to your
correspondent H. K. S. C., who criticises so pleasantly my remarks on
the meaning of "eisell." The question is: Does the meaning MR.
SINGER attaches to this word require in the passage cited the
expression of quantity to make it definite? I am disposed to think that a
definite quantity may be sometimes understood, in a well-defined act,
although it be not expressed. On the other hand, your correspondent
should know that English idiom requires that the name of a river should
be preceded by the definite article, unless it be personified; and that

whenever it is used without the article, it is represented by the personal
pronoun he. Though a man were able "to drink the Thames dry," he
could no more "drink up Thames" than he could drink up Neptune, or
the sea-serpent, or do any other impossible feat.
I observed before, that "the notion of drinking up a river would be both
unmeaning and out of place." I said this, with the conviction that there
was a purpose in everything that Shakspeare wrote; and being still of
this persuasion, allow me to protest against the terms "mere verbiage"
and "extravagant rant," which your correspondent applies to the
passage in question. The poet does not present common things as they
appear to all men. Shakspeare's art was equally great, {120} whether he
spoke with the tongues of madmen or philosophers. H. K. S. C. cannot
conceive why each feat of daring should be a tame possibility, save
only the last; but I say that they are all possible; that it was a daring to
do not impossible but extravagant feats. As far as quantity is concerned,
to eat a crocodile would be more than to eat an ox. Crocodile may be a
very delicate meat, for anything I know to the contrary; but I must
confess it appears to me to be introduced as something loathsome or
repulsive, and (on the poet's part) to cap the absurdity of the preceding
feat. The use made by other writers of a passage is one of the most
valuable kinds of comment. In a burlesque some years ago, I recollect a
passage was brought to a climax with the very words, "Wilt eat a
crocodile?" The immediate and natural response was--not "the thing's
impossible!" but--"you nasty beast!" What a descent then from the
drinking up of a river to a merely disagreeable repast. In the one case
the object is clear and intelligible, and the last feat is suggested by the
not so