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Toad-Eater.—In an article on Abp. Whatley's edition of Bacon's Essays in the last No. of the Quarterly Review, the reviewer makes a digression on the origin of this word. The late Bishop Copleston, he says, derived it from the Spanish, supposing it to be todito, a diminutive of todo, “all,” and signifying factotum; and this derivation he very properly rejects, for there is in fact no such word in any Spanish dictionary, and, even if there were, it could not have that sense. He next notices, and rejects also, the ingenious (the Archbishop is always so) etymon of Archbishop Whately, who takes it to be a mere refinement of a rather unseemly phrase, akin to one of frequent occurrence in Ben Jonson's “Bartholomew Fair.” He finally gives what he regards as the true one, as contained in the following passage of Sarah Fielding's “David Simple:”—“It is a metaphor taken from a mountebank's boy eating toads in order to show his master skill in expelling poison.” I doubt, however, if this practice was ever current, or was even possible; and, at all events, neither is this the true solution. The truth I take to be as follows:—Toad-eat is an English adaptation of the French avaler des couleuvres. Thus, Boileau has in his tenth Satire:— “Résous-toi, pauvre époux, à vivre de couleuvres;” on which the note of Lévizac is:—“L'expression proverbiale avaler des couleuvres signifie souffrier bien des choses fâcheuses, que l'on nous dit ou que l'on nous fait sans que nous osions en témoigner le moindre déplaisir.” If this be not an accurate description of toad-eating, I know not what is. English humour, to add strength to the image changed the poor harmless and handsome snake into the ugly and supposed venomous toad. Finally, toad-eating and toad-eater have become toady, and mean servile adulation, a part of the business of the original toad-eater, usually, if not exclusively, a lady's companion.—Notes and Queries.