25 FEBRUARY 1888, Page 14

NICKNAME S.

[To THE EDITOR 07 THE "SPECTATOR."] Sut,—Your reviewer, in his notice of Mr. Frey's book last week, gave us some amusing instances of nicknames. Amongst them occurred that of "Annie Katie," bestowed by a classical under- graduate on Miss Macau, the Oxford housemaid. The line "Eps4 cipixare Dix= was found to have suggested the sobriquet. May I offer, as a parallel to this, the nickname which Martial proposed to attach to the cook of his friend lEmilianus ? The cook's name was " Mistyllus." "I shall call him Taratalla,' " cries Martial, playing on the Homeric phrase actiorvAXolo T' &pa rixits. Here is the epigram, as my memory supplies it :— " Si tibi Mistyllus coguus, miliane, vocatnr Dicatur pare non Taratalla mihi ?"