"_Please the Pigs._"--Whence have we this very _free_ translation of Deo Volente?
[This colloquial phrase is generally supposed to be a corruption of "Please the _Pyx_," a vessel in which the Host is kept. By an easy metonymy, the vessel is substituted for the Host itself, in the same manner as when we speak, in parliamentary language, of "the sense of the _House_,"--we refer not to the bricks and stones, but to the opinion of its honourable members.]
_Meaning of Barnacles._--Can any of your readers throw any light on the term "barnacles," which is constantly used for "spectacles"? I need not say that the word in the singular number is the name of a shell-fish.
[Phillips, in his _World of Words_, tells us that "among farriers, _barnacles_, _horse-twitchers_, or _brakes_, are tools put on the nostrils of horses when they will not stand still to be shoed," &c.; and the figure of the barnacle borne in heraldry (not barnacle goose, which is a distinct bearing), as engraved in Parker's _Glossary of Heraldry_, sufficiently shows why the term has been transferred to spectacles, which it must be remembered were formerly only kept on by the manner in which they clipped the nose.]
_The Game of Curling._--As an enthusiastic lover of curling, I have been trying for some time past to discover any traces of the origin of the game, and the earliest mention made of it: but, I am sorry to say, without success.
I should therefore feel much obliged to any of your correspondents who could inform me concerning the origin of this game, and also any works which may treat of it.
[Appended to Dr. Brewster's account of curling, quoted in the _Encyclopædia Metropolitana_, vol. xvii. p. 469., occurs the following historical notice of this winter amusement:--"Curling is a comparatively modern amusement in Scotland, and does not appear to have been introduced till the beginning of the sixteenth century, when it probably was brought over by the emigrant Flemings. It was originally known under the name of _kuting_, which perhaps is a corruption of the Teutonic _kleuyten_, _kalluyten_, rendered by Kilian in his _Dictionary_, _ludere massis sive globulis glaciatis, certare discis in æquore glaciatâ_. In Canada it has become a favourite amusement, on account of the great length of the winters."]