_Gloves_ (No. 5. p. 72.).--In connection with the subject of the presentation of gloves, I would refer your correspondents to the curious scene in Vicar's _Parliamentary Chronicle_, where "Master Prynne," on his visit to Archbishop Laud in the Tower in May 1643, accepts "a fair pair of gloves, upon the Archbishop's extraordinary pressing importunity;" a present which, under the disagreeable circumstances of the interview, seems to have been intended to convey an intimation beyond that of mere courtesy.
_Cromlech._--As your learned correspondent "Dr. TODD" (No. 20. p. 319.) queries this word, I think it is very doubtful whether the word was in use, or not, before the period mentioned (16th century). Dr. Owain Pughe considered the word "cromlech" (_crwm-llech_, an inclined or flat stone,) to be merely a popular name, having no reference to the original purpose of the structure. The only Triadic name that will apply to the cromlechs, is _maen ketti_ (stone chests, or arks), the raising of which is described as one of "The three mighty labours of the Isle of Britain."
_Watewich_ (pp. 60. 121. 236.).--May not "Watewich" be Waterbeach?
"_By Hook or by Crook._"--I imagine that the expression "By hook or by crook" is in very general use throughout England. It was familiar to my ear forty years ago in Surrey, and within these four years its origin was (to my satisfaction at the moment) brought home to my comprehension in the North of Devon, where the tenant of a certain farm informed me that, by an old custom, he was entitled to take wood from some adjoining land "_by hook and crook_;" which, on inquiry, I understood to include, first, so much underwood as he could cut with the _hook_ or bill, and, secondly, so much of the branches of trees as he could pull down with the aid of a _crook_.
Whether this crook originally meant the shepherd's crook (a very efficient instrument for the purpose), or simply such a _crook_-ed _stick_ as boys use for gathering hazel-nuts, is not very material. It seems highly probable that, in the vast forests which once overspread this country, the right of taking "_fire bote_" by "hook or crook" was recognised; and we can hardly wish for a more apt illustration of the idea of gaining a desired object by the ordinary means--"a hook," if it lay close to our hand; or, by a method requiring more effort, "a crook," if it were a little beyond our reach.