clearness with which the subject is handled, without any address to

the passions or imagination. It is to be lamented that the part of the Poeticks in which he has given precepts for comedy did not likewise descend to posterity."

A considerable number of notes, in the same handwriting, are also in the volume.

J. M.

Oxford.

Misappropriated Quotation.—I have heard the following passage of Lord Bacon's, Essay VIII., and by a Cambridge D.D. too, so far as the word "fortune," attributed to Paley:

"He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises. The best works of the greatest merit for the public have proceeded from unmarried and childless men."

B. B.

The God Arciacon.—In a Descriptive Account of the Antiquities in the Grounds and in the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, drawn up by the learned Curator of the antiquities, at page 20. I find the following inscription and explanation:—

"N. III. An altar recently discovered in the rubble foundation, under one of the pillars of the church of St. Dionis, Walmgate, York. It is inscribed:

DEO
ARCIACON
ET N. AVG. SI
MAT. VITALIS
ORD V. S. LM.

Which may be read thus: DEO Arciacon et Numini Augusti Simatius Vitalis Ordovix Votum solvit libens merito, i.e. To the God Arciacon and to the Divinity of Augustus, Simatius Vitalis, one of the Ordovices, discharges his vow willingly, deservedly—namely, by dedicating this altar. There is nothing in this inscription to indicate its date, or the Emperor to whose divinity, in part, the altar is dedicated. The god Arciacon, whose name occurs in no other inscription, was probably one of those local deities to whom the Roman legions were so prone to pay religious reverence, especially if in the attributes ascribed to them they bore any resemblance to the gods of their own country. If the reading and interpretation of ORD be right, Vitalis was a Briton; and Arciacon may have been a deity acknowledged by the Ordovices, who occupied the northern parts of Wales."

In the name ARCIACON I fancy that I see in a Latinized form the British words ARCH IACHAWR, i.e. the Supreme Healer. Arch has the same meaning in Welsh as it has in the English and several other languages. In combination it is shortened to Ar, as in Yr Arglwdd Dduw, the Lord God. My conjecture is, that the Britons may have worshipped a God whose attributes resembled those of the Æsculapius of the Greeks. I hope that some of the contributors to "N. & Q." will be so kind as to give some information on this subject.

Gat-tothed.—I do not know whether this mysterious word in the description of the "Wife of Bath," has been satisfactorily explained since the time of Tyrwhitt; but perhaps the following passage may suggest a new reading in addition to "cat-tothed" and "gap-tothed," which he gives in his note on Canterbury Tales, p. 470.:

"The Doctor deriveth his pedigree from Grono ap Heylyn, who descended from Brocknel Skythrac, one of the princes of Powis-land, in whose family was ever observed that one of them had a gag-tooth, and the same was a notable omen of good fortune."—Barnard's Life of Heylyn, p. 75., reprinted in Heyl. Hist. Ref. Eccl. Hist. Soc., 1. xxxii.

Query, What was a gag-tooth? The "Wife" herself says,