any such exist I should be glad to know of them.

W. Fraser.

Tor-Mohun.

A Punning Divine.—Wanted the whereabouts of the following sentence, which is said to be taken from a volume of sermons published during the reign of James I.:

"This dial shows that we must die all; yet notwithstanding, all houses are turned into ale houses; our cares into cates; our paradise into a pair o' dice; matrimony into a matter of money, and marriage into a merry age; our divines have become dry vines; it was not so in the days of Noah,—O no!"

W. W.

Malta.

Contango.—A technical term in use among the sharebrokers of Liverpool, and I presume elsewhere, signifying a sum of money paid for accommodating either a buyer or seller by carrying the engagement to pay money or deliver shares over to the next account-day. Can your correspondents say from whence derived?

Agmond.

Pedigree to the Time of Alfred.—Wapshott, a blacksmith in Chertsey, holds lands held by his ancestors temp. Alfred (M‘Culloch's Highlands, vol. iv. p. 410.). Can this statement be confirmed in 1853?

A. C.

"Service is no inheritance."—Will you or any of your readers have the goodness to inform me

what is the origin of the adage occurring twice in the Waverley Novels, thus:

"Service, I wot, is no inheritance now-a-days; some are wiser than other some," &c. (See Peveril of the Peak, chap. xiv.)

and

"Ay, St. Ronan's, that is a' very true,—but service is nae inheritance, and as for friendship it begins at hame."—St. Ronan's Well, chap. x.

I have seen a stone in an old building in the north of Scotland, with the following inscription, cut in letters of an ancient form: "Be gude in office, or (or perhaps 'for,' part of the stone being here broken off) servitude is no inheritance to none." And I am curious to know the origin of this proverb, so similar to that put by Sir Walter Scott in the mouths of two of his homely characters; the one English and the other Scotch. An answer will very much oblige

G. M. T.

Edinburgh.

Antiquity of Fire-irons.—In an old book, published 1660, I met with the following couplet: