Chapter 1 R. R.

Consolato del Mare.-The maritime code of the Venetians derived from Barcelona, observed also by the Genoese and Pisans, was called "Consolato del Mare," A.D. 1200. Why was it so called?

R. H. G.

Consonants in Welsh.-It has often been asserted that the Welsh language is remarkable for the number of its consonants. Can any of your readers acquainted with that language inform me whether there is a larger proportion of consonants in Welsh than in English? Messrs. Chambers, in a recent number of their Repository, say:

"On the road to Merthyr, we heard a drunken Welshman swear; oh for words to describe the effect! His mouth seemed full of consonants, which cracked and cracked, and ground and exploded, in an extraordinary way," &c.

Is this a true representation of the case?

J. M.

"Initiative" and "Psychology."-

" ... a previous act and conception of the mind, or what we have called an initiative, is indispensably necessary, even to the mere semblance of method."-Coleridge's Treatise on Method.

Am I to understand from this sentence that this word was an original adaptation of Coleridge's? If not, when was it first introduced, and by whom?

In the same treatise, Coleridge employs the word psychological, and apologises for using an insolens verbum. Was this the first occasion of the familiar use of this word? I find psychology in Bailey.