_Spiritual Persons employed in Lay Offices_ (Vol. vi., pp. 376. 567.).--Your correspondents W. and E. H. A. seem to have overlooked the modern instances of this practice, which the _London Gazette_ has recently recorded, in { 51} announcing the appointment of several clergymen as deputy-lieutenants. This is an office which is so far of a military character, that it is supposed to place the holder in the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and certainly entitles him to wear a military uniform. If these members of the "church militant" should be presented at Her Majesty's Court in their new appointment, will they appear in their clerical or military habit?
_Passage in Burke_ (Vol. vi., p. 556.).--The reply to QUANDO TANDEM'S Query is given, I imagine, by Burke himself, in a passage which occurs only a few lines after that which has been quoted:
"Little did I dream that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom."
This means, I suppose, that Marie Antoinette carried a dagger, with which, _more Romano_, she would have committed suicide, had her brutal persecutors assaulted her.
_Ensake and Cradock Arms_ (Vol. vi., p. 533.).--In a pedigree of the family of Barnwell, of Cransley in Northamptonshire, now before me, I find emblazoned the arms of Ensake: Paly of six azure and or, on a bend sable three mullets pierced. Cradock: Argent, three boars' heads couped sable armed or.
_Sich House_ (Vol. vi., pp. 363. 568.).--_Sike_ or _syke_, a word in common use in the south of Scotland, and on the Border, meaning a small water run. In Jamieson's _Dictionary_ it is spelt "_Sike_, _syik_, _syk_, a rill or rivulet; one that is usually dry in summer; a small stream or rill; a marshy bottom with a small stream in it."
_Americanisms so called_ (Vol. vi., p. 554.).--The word _bottom_, signifying a piece of low ground, whether _upon_ a stream of water or not, is English. I recollect two places at this moment (both dry), in the county of Surrey, to which the word is applied, viz. Smitham Bottom, to the north of Reigate, through which the railway runs; and Boxhill Bottom, a few miles to the westward, in the same range of chalk hills.
_Sparse_ and _sparsely_, it is said by UNEDA of Philadelphia, _are_ Americanisms. This, however, is not so. There is a Query on the word _sparse_ in Vol. i., p. 215. by C. FORBES: and on p. 251. of the same volume J. T. STANLEY supposes it to be an Americanism, on the authority of the _Penny Cyclopædia_.