_Nine Days' Wonder._--Did any particular circumstance give rise to the saying, "A nine days' wonder?"
[Most probably Kemp's _Nine Daies Wonder_, performed in a Morrice Daunce from London to Norwich, wherein euery dayes iourney is pleasantly set downe, to satisfie his friends the truth against all lying ballad-makers; what he did, how he was welcome, and by whome entertained.--This very curious tract has been reprinted by the Camden Society.]
_Streso._--In a book by Cradock on the Lives of the Apostles, published in 1641, I find many extracts and quotations in Latin from Streso in _Pref. de Vit. Apostolorum_. As I cannot find out or hear of such an author or book of Streso, could you inform one who he was?
[The work is in the Bodleian Library: "Streso (Casp.), Anhaltinus, _Commentarius practicus in Actorum Apostolicorum per Lucam Evangelistam descriptorum capita priora sedecim_. 4to. Amst. 1650." The same library contains five other works by this author.]
_The Willow Garland._--In the Third Part of _King Henry VI._ (Act III. Sc. 3.), the Lady Bona sends this message to King Edward, uttered, as the messenger afterwards reports to him, "with mild disdain:"
"Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly, I'll wear the willow garland for his sake."
As I find no note upon the willow garland in any edition of Shakspeare to which I have access, I should be obliged by having its meaning explained in your columns.
[The willow is considered as the emblem of despairing love, and is often associated with the yew and the cypress in the churchyard: hence, a garland made of the boughs of the willow was said to be worn by forlorn lovers. In _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act II. Sc. 1., Benedick says,--"I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped."]
_Name of Nun._--Can any of your readers inform me on what principle it is that the name of Nun (ןוּכ), the father of Joshua, is expressed in the Septuagint by ναυῆ? I cannot help regarding the substitution of αυῆ for ןוּ as a very singular circumstance, more especially as it seems impossible to account for it by the conjecture that כ had been mistaken by the LXX for any letter that would be likely to be represented in Greek by ῆ. There are but few proper names in the Hebrew Scriptures that terminate in ןוּ; and the way in which these are expressed in the Septuagint affords, I believe, no analogy to the above case.