"There is nothing new under the sun," quoth the Preacher; and such must
be said of "NOTES AND QUERIES." Your contributor M. (Vol. ii, p. 194.)
has drawn attention to the _Weekly Oracle_, which in 1736 gave forth its
responses to the inquiring public; but, as he intimates, many similar
periodicals might be instanced. Thus, we have _Memoirs for the
Ingenious_, 1693, 4to., edited by I. de la Crose; _Memoirs for the
Curious_, 1701, 4to.; _The Athenian Oracle_, 1704, 8vo.; _The Delphick
Oracle_, {243} 1720, 8vo.; _The British Apollo_, 1740, 12mo.; with
several others of less note. The three last quoted answer many singular
questions in theology, law, medicine, physics, natural history, popular
superstitions, &c., not always very satisfactorily or very
intelligently, but still, often amusingly and ingeniously. _The British
Apollo: containing two thousand Answers to curious Questions in most
Arts and Sciences, serious, comical, and humourous_, the fourth edition
of which I have now before me, indulges in answering such questions as
these: "How old was Adam when Eve was created?--Is it lawful to eat
black pudding?--Whether the moon in Ireland is like the moon in England?
Where is hell situated? Do cocks lay eggs?" &c. In answer to the
question, "Why is gaping catching?" the Querists of 1740 are gravely
told,--
"Gaping or yawning is infectious, because the steams of the
blood being ejected out of the mouth, doth infect the ambient
air, which being received by the nostrils into another man's
mouth, doth irritate the fibres of the hypogastric muscle to
open the mouth to discharge by expiration the unfortunate gust
of air infected with the steams of blood, as aforesaid."
The feminine gender, we are further told, is attributed to a ship,
"because a ship carries burdens, and therefore resembles a pregnant
woman."
But as the faith of 1850 in _The British Apollo_, with its two thousand
answers, may not be equal to the faith of 1740, what dependence are we
to place in the origin it attributes to two very common words, a _bull_,
and a _dun_?--
"Why, when people speak improperly, is it termed a bull?--It
became a proverb from the repeated blunders of one _Obadiah
Bull_, a lawyer of London, who lived in the reign of King Henry
VII."