Ducange refers also to some kindred words; but, instead of clearing up my difficulty in the word _somagia_, he presents me with another in _captagia_, the meaning of which I do not clearly understand. Perhaps some of your more learned contributors will obligingly help me to the true import of these words?
_Charade_.--Can any one tell who is the author of the following charade? No doubt, the lines are well known to many of your readers, although I have never seen them in print. It has been said that Dr. Robinson, a physician, wrote them. It strikes me that the real author, whoever he be, richly deserves to be named in "Notes and Queries."
"Me, the contented man desires, The poor man has, the rich requires; The miser gives, the spendthrift saves, And all must carry to their graves."
It can scarcely be necessary to add that the answer is, _nothing_.
"_Smoke Money_."--Under this name is collected every year at Battle, in Sussex, by the Constable, one penny from every householder, and paid to the Lord of the Manor. What is its origin and meaning?
"_Rapido contrarius orbi_."--What divine of the seventeenth century adopted these words as his motto? They are part of a line in one of Owen's epigrams.
_Lord Richard Christophilus_.--Can any of your readers give any account of Lord Richard Christophilus, a Turk converted to Christianity, to whom, immediately after the Restoration, in July, 1660, the Privy Council appointed a pension of 50l. a-year, and an additional allowance of 2l. a-week.
_Fiz-gigs_.--In those excellent poems, Sandys's _Paraphrases on Job and other Books of the Bible_, there is a word of a most destructive character to the effect. Speaking of leviathan, he asks,
"Canst thou with _fiz-gigs_ pierce him to the quick?"
It may be an ignorant question, but I do not know what fiz-gigs are.
_Specimens of Erica in Bloom_.--Can any of your correspondents oblige me by the information where I can procure specimens in bloom of the following plants, viz. Erica crescenta, Erica paperina, E. purpurea, E. flammea, and at what season they come into blossom in England? If specimens are not procurable without much expense and trouble, can you supply me with the name of a work in which these plants are figured?