_Lord Erskine's Brooms._--"G.B." informs us, that the anecdote about Lord Erskine's brooms, and the apprehension of his servant for selling them without a licence, will be found in his Life by Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, vol. vi. p. 618.). Erskine himself attended the sessions to plead the man's cause, and contended that the brooms were agricultural produce, or, as he jocosely observed, "came under the _sweeping_ clause." The _when_ is about 1807, and the _where_ an estate in Sussex, which proved rather an unprofitable speculation to its owner, as it produced nothing but birch trees, and those but stunted ones. To which information "W.J." adds, that about the same period Lord Erskine printed, for private circulation, _An Appeal in favour of the agricultural Services of Rooks_; a production probably scarce now, but full of humanity, and very characteristic.
_Scarborough Warning._--In a postscript to a letter written from court on the 19th January, 1603, by Toby Matthew, Bishop of Durham, to Hutton, Archbishop of York, I find the term _Scarborough warning_. Can any of the correspondents of your valuable paper inform me of the origin and prevalence of this saying? The postscript is--
"When I was in the middest of this discourse, I received a message from my lord chamberlaine, that it was his majesty's pleasure that I should preach before him upon Sunday next; which _Scarborough warning_ did not perplex me, but so puzzled me, as no mervail if somewhat be pretermitted, which otherwise I might have better remembered."
Quoted in Caldwell's _Conferences_, p. 166.
[NARES tells us, that Ray, on the authority of Fuller, states that this saying took its origin from "Thomas Stafford, who, in the reign of Mary, A.D. 1557, with a small company, seized on Scarborough Castle (utterly destitute of provision for resistance), before the townsmen had the least notice of their approach;" but shows that it was probably much older, as, in a ballad written by J. Heywood on the taking of that place by Stafford, the following more probable origin is given to the proverb:--
"This term _Scarborow warning_ grew (some say), By hasty hanging for rank robbery theare. Who that was met, but suspect in that way, Straight he was trust up, whatever he were."