_Expressions in Milton._--Allow me to ask some correspondent to give the
meaning of the following expressions from the prose works of Milton:--
"A toothless satire is as improper as a toothed sleck stone, and as
bullish."
"A toothed sleck stone," I take to mean a "jagged whetstone," very unfit
for its purpose; but what is the force of the term "as bullish?"
Again:
"I do not intend this hot seasons to _bid you the base_, through the
wide and dusty champaign of the councils."
The meaning I receive from this is, "I don't mean to carry you through the
maze of the ancient councils of the church;" but I wish to know the exact
force of the expression "to bid you the base?"
R. (a Reader).
_Saints' Days._--The _chorea invita_ is not a very satisfactory explanation
of St. Vitus's dance; and though St. Vitus is not in the Roman martyrology
of our day, yet he is in the almanacs of the fifteenth century, and
probably earlier. The martyr Vitus makes the 15th of June a red letter-day
in the first almanac ever printed. Who was St. Vitus, and how did he give
his name to the play of the features which is called his dance? Again, the
day before St. Patrick is celebrated in Ireland, St. Patricius is
celebrated in Auvergne. Can any identity be established?