* * * * *
Minor Notes.
_On a "Custom of y^e Englyshe._"--When a more than ordinarily doubtful
matter is offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if
he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation
of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a
"fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by
worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can
scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from
the episode he {363} relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as a
native, but--
"The third day, in the morning, I, prying up and down alone, met a
Turke, who, in Italian, told me--Ah! are you an Englishman, and with a
_kind of malicious posture laying his forefinger under his eye_,
methought he had the lookes of a designe."--_Voyage in the Levant,
performed by Mr. Henry Blunt_, p. 60.: Lond. 1650.
--a silent, but expressive, "posture," tending to eradicate any previously
formed opinion of the verdantness of Mussulmans!