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the date of the creation to be about 4138 B.C.; and, consequently, the end of the 6000 years of the world, and opening of the seventh millennium, by approximation, about A.D. 1862. For this piece of information, I am also indebted to Mr. Elliott. WILLIAM Dodge.

Hazelbury Bryan, Blandford.

TROCHILUS AND CROCODILE.

(Vol. vi., p. 75.)

I am pleased to see the Query of your correspondent S. L. P. respecting these animals in a recent Number, as it may possibly have arisen from a remark made by myself in the concluding paragraph of some brief observations on the credibility of the ancient naturalists, which you have done me the favour to admit into your 141st Number.

Although the statement of Herodotus is confirmed by Aristotle and Pliny, and other ancient writers, it has been very generally discredited in modern times. Recent inquiries, however, show that in this, as in most of his relations, the Father of History is justified by the fact.

The term bdella has hitherto been translated

leech, as from Boaλw, to suck; but, in the opinion of Bähr, Herodotus intended to describe flies, or rather gnats, which also live by suction, and not leeches. And M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire has adopted the opinion that the word Beλa corresponds to culer, that is, a gnat, myriads of which insects swarm on the banks of the Nile, and attack the crocodile when he comes to repose on the sand. His mouth is not so hermetically closed but that they can enter, which they do in such numbers, that the interior of his palate, which is naturally of a bright yellow, appears covered with a darkish brown crust. The insects strike their trunks into the orifices of the glands, which abound in the mouth of the crocodile; and the tongue of the animal being immoveable, it cannot get rid of them. It is then that the trochilus, a kind of plover, closely allied to the Charadrius minor of Meyer, or, in the opinion of M. St. Hilaire, C. Egyptiacus, but which Pliny, confounding with another bird of the same name, calls "the king of birds," in its pursuit of the gnats, hastens to his relief; the crocodile always taking care, when he is about to shut his mouth, to make certain movements which warn the bird to fly away. Thus the ancient story is not so unreasonable as might be thought. It is matter of every-day observation, that gnats will attack bulls and other large terrestrial animals of the fiercest nature, and that wagtails and other insectivorous birds will peck the insects from the muzzles of the quadrupeds; while in India it is common to see the ox approaching its eye deliberately to the ground, by holding its head on one side, to enable the Mina, a species of starling, to take an insect from the hairs

of the eyelid. There appears, therefore, no reason why the crocodile should not have recourse to similar aid in similar necessity. GEORGE MUNford.

East Winch.

The only modern traveller, I believe, who has witnessed anything approaching to the story told by Herodotus of the "Trochilus and Crocodile," is Mr. Curzon: he describes it as of the plover species, and as large as a small pigeon. In his Monasteries of the Levant, he says he was out crocodile shooting one day, and having espied one asleep on a bank, he approached cautiously to get a shot at him; when he observed that he was attended by a ziczac (the common name for the Trochilus). He goes on to say:

"The bird was walking up and down close to the crocodile's nose. I suppose I moved, for it suddenly saw me, and instead of flying away, as any respectable bird would have done, he jumped up a foot from the ground, screamed Ziczac! ziczac ! with all the powers of his voice, and dashed himself against the crocodile's face two or three times. The great beast started up, and immediately spying his danger, made a jump into the air, and, dashing into the water with a splash which covered me with mud, he dived into the river and dis

appeared."

The above account is to be found in p. 150. chap. xii. of Mr. Curzon's book. P. W.

SAUL'S SEVEN DAYS.

(Vol. vi., p. 75.)

Perhaps the following explanation may render the passage in 1 Sam. xiii. 8. more intelligible to your correspondent BOOTICUS.

Gilgal was one of those places to which Samuel used to go in circuit to judge Israel; the others being Bethel and Mizpeh, and his dwelling was at Ramah, and at each of them there was an altar unto the Lord. Of these places Gilgal seems to have been chief in importance, for the first altar was erected there after the passage of the Jordan, and the entrance of the Israelites into the promised land, when "the Lord rolled away the reproach of Egypt." Saul went on his errand to the prophet to Ramah, and there Samuel anointed him, and gave him a prophetic charge, chap. x. 8., viz.:

"Thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I will come down unto thee to offer burnt offer ings, &c.: seven days shalt thou tarry till I come to thee, and shew thee what thou shalt do."

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Gilgal was to "renew the kingdom," 1 Sam. xi. 14. The next occasion was after he had "reigned two years over Israel," when the Philistines threatened him, and then he disobeyed the commandment. The last time he was met by Samuel at Gilgal, was after the slaughter of the Amalekites, when he came to Carmel and set him up a place," i. e. pitched his camp preparatory to dividing the spoil; but his heart misgave him, for it was told Samuel, "he is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. He must make some excuse for the booty he had brought away,-it was to be for sacrifice. Samuel then came to him as at other times, but refused to offer sacrifice until Saul besought him; and then it is said he "came no more to see Saul until the day of his death," i. e. came no more down to Gilgal to meet him.

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It is clear, then, that the charge which was given to Saul, chap. x. 8., was one of great moment; that it informed him of the manner in which he was to worship the Lord and learn His will; and that on his due observance of it the stability of his kingdom was to depend. H. C. K.

Rectory, Hereford.

VENICE GLASSES.

(Vol. vi., p. 76.)

The popular error, current in the Middle Ages, that drinking-glasses manufactured at Venice possessed the valuable property of shivering to pieces upon a poisoned liquid being poured into them, may probably have arisen partly from the extreme desirability of some such detective instrument in that age of poisons," and partly from an exaggerated idea of the excellence of the Venetian manufacture. Sir Thomas Browne discourses upon the fallacy (Vulgar Errors, b. vii. c. 17.): "Though it be said that poison will break a Venice glass, yet have we not met with any of that nature." And says further:

"Though the best of China dishes, and such as the Emperor doth use, be thought by some of infallible virtue to this effect; yet will they not, I fear, be able to elude the mischief of such intentions."

Lord Byron (The Two Foscari, Act V. Sc. 1.) makes the Doge, in alluding to the ascribed property, disclaim his own belief in it:

"Doge. 'Tis said that our Venetian crystal has
Such pure antipathy to poisons, as

To burst if aught of venom touches it.
Lor. Well, Sir?

Doge. Then it is false, or you are true;

For my own part, I credit neither: - 'tis
An idle legend."

Mrs. Radcliffe, too, has made use of the same fiction in that fine imaginative work The Mysteries of Udolpho; and W. Harrison Ainsworth has doue the like in his Crichton.

Another property was also ascribed to Venetian glass, that of sustaining violent blows or shocks with impunity. This quality is alluded to in the Miscellanies, p. 132., of credulous old Aubrey. A certain Lady Honywood entertained doubts as to her salvation, and her spiritual adviser, Dr. Bolton, was endeavouring to reassure her:

"I shall as certainly be damned,' said she, holding a Venetian glass in her hand, as this glass will be broken,' and at that word threw it hard upon the ground, and the glass remained sound, which did give her great comfort. The glass is yet preserved among the cimelia of the family."

Howell, however (Epistola Ho-Elianæ, p. 310.), entertained a different opinion of its tenacity:

"A good name is like Venice glass, quickly cracked, never to be amended, patched it may be." We may note from this that the excellence of Venice glass was such that it had become proverbial as an illustration of perfection.

It may not be considered irrelevant to remind your correspondent that similar virtues have been attributed from the earliest ages to the horn of the rhinoceros. This opinion obtained in India when the English made their first voyage thither in 1591, and the horns of this animal were carefully preserved by the native monarchs on account of their reputed efficacy. Calmet, in his Dictionary of the Bible, also alludes to this belief, and says that drinking-cups were made of this horn, and used by Oriental monarchs at table because it was believed that "it sweats at the approach of any kind of poison whatever."

According to Thunberg, the same belief prevailed in Africa. He states in his Journey to Kaffraria, that

"The horns of the rhinoceros were kept by some people both in town and country, not only as rarities, but also as useful in diseases and for the purpose of detecting poisons. As to the former of these intentions, the fine shavings were supposed to cure convulsions and spasms in children. With respect to the latter, it was generally believed that goblets made of these horns would discover a poisonous draught that was poured into them, by making the liquor ferment till it ran quite out of the goblet. Of these horns goblets are made which are set in gold and silver and presented to kings, persons of distinction, and particular friends, or else sold at a high price, sometimes at the rate of fifty rix-dollars each."

Our traveller made the matter a subject of experiment:

"When I tried these horns," says he, "both wrought and unwrought, both old and young, with several sorts of poisons, weak as well as strong, I observed not the least motion or effervescence; but when a solution of corrosive sublimate or other similar substance was poured into one of these horns, there arose only a few bubbles, produced by the air which had been enclosed

in the pores of the horn, and which were now disengaged."

A writer in The Menageries (vol. iii. pp. 19-22.) thinks that the great value set upon the horn of this animal, on account of its imaginary virtues, suggested the image to the Psalmist, "My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn," and that consequently this animal and the rhinoceros are identical.

I hope that my discursive and desultory remarks may afford your correspondent RT. some part of the information he desires.. WILLIAM BATES.

Birmingham.

These glasses, as their name implies, were manufactured at Venice, or rather at Murano, one of her isles. At the time these glasses were in the greatest repute, Venice was the only European city possessing a glass manufactory. No orna-mental glass vessels, which can positively be ascribed to Germany, are known of an earlier date than 1553. The earliest English glass-houses for the manufacture of fine glass, those of the Savoy and Crutched Friars, were not established until the middle of the sixteenth century, and they apparently were for a considerable time much inferior to the Venetian; for in 1635, nearly a hundred years later, Sir Robert Mansel obtained a monopoly for importing fine Venetian drinkingglasses. Probably Venice owes the introduction of her glass manufacture to her share in the conquest of Constantinople in the beginning of the thirteenth century. The glass bowls, salvers, bottles, &c., painted in enamel, and vessels with canes " enclosed in the stems, for which Venice became so celebrated, were the immediate effects of this participation, which were further stimulated by the immigration of Greek artists into Italy 250 years later, on the breaking up of the Empire of the East. The peculiarity of the Venice workmanship consists in its exceeding lightness, no lead being employed in its material. I was not aware that the superstition of the power of a Venice glass to detect poison had ever obtained in modern times. Sir Thomas Browne, in his work on Vulgar Errors, published in 1646,

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Though it be said that poison will break a Venice glass, yet have we not met any of that nature."

Might not this superstition arise from these glasses being sometimes used in alchemical processes? When made for this purpose they were grotesque in shape, and frequently in the form of the signs of the zodiac. Some amusing information of Murano and her glass manufacture may be obtained from Howell's Familiar Letters, Nos. 28 & 29. He was sent to Venice by Sir Robert Mansel to obtain information concerning the art. Your correspondent, if really interested in this beautiful

fabric, must have lost much if he did not witness the magnificent collection of Venetian glass brought together and exhibited by the Society of Arts in 1850. Possessing one or two specimens of the art, and having but little knowledge concerning it except what I have stated, I shall be very glad if my Reply and Query elicit any further information on the subject. EMABEE.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Styles of Dukes and Marquises (Vol. vi., p. 76.). The proper style of a duke is Most Noble, that of a marquis Most Honourable. The style Most Noble has of late been constantly misapplied to marquises; most improperly, if there be any utility in distinctions, and in being correct. The official notices in the London Gazette, from many public departments, are, in respect to the styles of people, frequently wrong; so much so, at times, as to be of no authority, as in the instance referred to by L. T.

G.

that I may have spoken too positively, yet I canBurials (Vol. vi., p. 84.). It is quite possible not help thinking that his bishop could catch the clergyman whose irregularity is described, if the bishop chose to try. Such conduct is a violation of the rubric of the burial service, and, I should have thought, a breach of the Act of Uniformity. If a clergyman be at liberty to use the rites and ceremonies of the church just as he likes, so long as he keeps outside the consecrated boundary, perhaps the profanation of the Lord's Supper by administering the elements to a monkey was not punishable. I have heard that this was done at the instigation of the notorious Lord Sandwich, when at the head of the Navy, and that the priest, who "made himself vile," was rewarded with a valuable benefice. ALFRED GATTY.

If BENBOW will look into the Act of Uniformity prefixed to the Book of Common Prayer, he will soon discover that "the whole matter" of burials, about which he writes, does not "resolve itself into a question of good taste and eminent churchmanship," but of heavy pains and penalties, to which every clergyman is liable, if he uses any of the open prayers" otherwise than is "set forth in the said book."

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BENBOW seems to be a feigned name: if he desired an early answer for the authority of the Rev. ALFRED GATTY's position, he might no doubt have easily obtained it, through Her Majesty's Post Office messengers, by addressing his Query direct, and under his own proper signature.

As to burial in unconsecrated ground, if any one prefers some other spot than "God's Acre," or other consecrated ground, where he wishes his remains to be deposited, in that he may certainly have his own choice; but he thereby excommuni

cates himself from the services of the church and the ministrations of her ministers. H. T. ELLACOMBE. Clyst St. George.

Shakspeare Emendations (Vol. v., pp. 410. 436. 554.).In the passage discussed (but not to my mind satisfactorily settled) by MR. SINGER and A. E. B., there is another difficulty. "I am put to know" seems an awkward phrase for "I must needs know," which, as A. E. B. justly says, must be the meaning. Would it not be somewhat clearer if read, "I am not to know," i. e. "I am not now to learn?" This emendation is so much in the style of those in Mr. Collier's folio, that I think it worth offering.

I wish I could offer anything as plausible instead of "all at once," in the passage in As You Like It (discussed Vol. v., p. 554.), which I believe was originally some single word, a climax to "insult and excite." All at once seems to me not merely surplusage, but almost nonsense; but it has hitherto passed unquestioned, except by a very slight quere of Steevens. C.

Bronze Medals (Vol. v., p. 608.).-6. Laura Corsi was the wife of Jean Vincent Salviati, Marquis of Montieri, who died November 26, 1693. She was the mother of several sons; Salviati is one of the oldest Florentine families. It appears in history as far back as A.D. 1200.

4. Ás to Aragonia, I have no doubt this alludes to the celebrated Mary of Aragon, sister of the no less famous Joan of Aragon, who was the mother of that Marc Antony Colonna whose name is bound up with the battle of Lepanto. They were both daughters of Ferdinand of Aragon, Duke of Montalto, third natural son of Ferdinand King of Naples. Mary became the wife of Alphonso d'Avalos, one of Charles V.'s best generals. Brautome says he met her when she was near sixty, and even then her autumn surpassed all the springs and summers in the room. Thuan (ad ann. 1552) speaks of the island of Ischia as chiefly remarkable for her retreat: "Maxime Mariæ Arragonia Avali Vastii viduæ secessu nobilem." Jerome Ruscelli collected together all the pieces of poetry written on her by the wits of the day. It was printed at Venice in 1552, 4to., by Griffins. He calls her the archetype of beauty.

2. MR. BOASE appears to be right in his conjecture about Conestagius. There is another work by the same author, Historia della Guerre della Germania inferiori di Jeronimo Conestagio Gentilhuomo Genovese, published at Venice, 1614, and at Leyden, 1634. C. K. W.

Baxter (Vol. vi., p. 86.).—If my memory serves me, R. G. will find extracts of Baxter's blasphemies concerning Christ's Long Parliament, and the regicides sitting with Him therein, in Sikes on Parochial Communion. I do not remember having read

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Meaning of "slow" in Goldsmith's "Traveller" (Vol. v., p. 135.).—MR. CORNISH has given a wrong version of the anecdote relative to the above word, putting a piece of nonsense into Johnson's mouth which he never uttered. Johnson thus tells the story himself in Boswell:

"Chamier once asked him what he meant by 'slow,' the last word in the first line of The Traveller:

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow :'

Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say something, without consideration 'Yes.' answered, I was sitting by, and said, 'No, sir; you do not mean tardiness of locomotion: you mean that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.' Chamier believed then that I had written the line as much as if he had seen me write it."

This affords a curious illustration of the saying, that poets, like prophets and the utterers of oracles, often do not understand their own words.

A "slow fellow," in school phrase, means a mopish unsocial person; and "slow" is applied to anything stupid or tiresome. JARLTZBERG.

Bells on Horses' Necks (Vol. vi., p. 54.). This custom still exists in parts of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, where the two counties join. Four or five bells of good size are suspended under a frame of wood, which is covered with worsted fringe, and carried by the leader horse.

This practice is of use to denote the approach of a team in any of the numerous winding lanes, which, though adding to the beauty of the landscape by their thick hedges and lofty elms, yet, being narrow and thus shut in, do not allow of two waggons passing at every part. J. D. A.

Bells on horses' necks are seen occasionally in North Lincolnshire. In bygone times they were fastened to the harness of horses, to give notice of their approach, as the roads were at that time without stone, and consequently so bad that the drivers could not turn upon the side with much expedition.

K. P. D. E.

The custom of hanging bells on the necks of horses, inquired after by A. C., obtains in most of the counties of England. I have notes of having observed it in Derbyshire, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Yorkshire, Shropshire, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Devonshire, Cornwall, Cambridgeshire, Northamp

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Burial in unconsecrated Ground (Vol. v., pp. 320. 404.).—Your numerous correspondents who have written on this subject, seem to have overlooked two notable cases in point, which occurred some time ago in this neighbourhood:-the one that of John Trigg, whose eccentric will is given p. 1325. of Hone's Every Day Book, whose coffin is now to be seen placed on the beams of a barn at Stevenage; the other that of Richard Tristram, who was buried in a field in the parish of Ippolitts. The gravestone marking the resting-place of Tristram was, till quite lately, a lion of the neighbourhood; but a sacrilegious farmer, annoyed at the injury done to his hedges by the visitors to the tomb, has either removed the stone, or sunk it below the level of the ground. Local tradition assigns a singular cause to their burial in these spots. It is stated that they were shocked at the unceremonious way in which the sexton in a neighbouring churchyard treated the remains disinterred whilst digging a tomb, and therefore they left the most stringent injunctions that their burial might place them beyond the reach of similar usage. L. W.

Hitchen.

I beg to add to your list of bodies deposited in unconsecrated places, 1. "The Miller's Tomb," on Highdown Hill, near Worthing, some notice of which may be seen in Hone's Every Day Book, vol. iv. p. 1392. 2. The leaden coffin enclosing the body of one Thomas Trigg, a farmer, of Stevenage, Herts, which is deposited (according to his will) on a tie-beam of the roof of a building which was once his barn, but now belongs to a public-house in the above place. It is still exhibited to the curious by the hostler. 3. The coffin with the corpse (unless both are utterly decayed) of another eccentric character (whose name I forget), which lies on a table in a summer house in Northamptonshire, somewhere between Towcester and Green's Norton. J. R. M., M. A. Canongate Marriages (Vol. v., p. 370.).—In the first volume of the Grenville Papers is a letter from Mr. Jenkinson to Mr. Grenville, which deserves the attention of R. S. F. of Perth. Mr. Jenkinson informs his friend that, love getting the better of duty, Lord George Lennox had set out with Lady Louisa Ker, to be married at Edinburgh. The letter bears date 1759. Your correspondent's Query refers to "about the year 1745."

WILLIAM BROCK.

Foubert Family (Vol. vi., p. 55.).— A Treatise composed by Thos. Foubert, Author of several curious Performances of Mechanism, London, 1757. This notice of the works of Foubert is in the centre of a highly embellished frontispiece, at the foot of which are two elegant female figures: one seated with compasses fixed across the globe; the other carries a scroll and pencils, while portraits and books strew the ground. At the head of all this, standing on a plinth, is a foot-soldier in a cocked hat, with musket, and in marching order, sword as well as bayonet. The plinth carries, "Pro Aris et Focis;" the whole surmounted and surrounded by emblematical devices, the arts and sciences, with a great display of drums, guns, flags, and all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of war; and a graceful festoon of fiddles and French horns. At the foot of the print we may presume the artist insisted upon the addition of a line in French, thus:

"Traité composé par Th. Foubert, Londres, 1757. A. Walker, delin, et sculp.”

J. H. A.

Andrews the Astronomer (Vol. iv., pp. 74. 162.).— For the sake of its preservation, and as an addition to the notices that have already appeared, I send the epitaph inscribed to the memory of Mr. Andrews, from the New Burial Ground, Royston, where he was interred:

"In memory of Mr. Henry Andrews, who, from a limited education, made great progress in the Liberal Sciences, and was justly esteemed one of the best Astronomers of the Age. He departed this life, in full assurance of a better, January 26th, 1820, aged 76 years.”

Andrews built a house in the High Street, Royston, in 1805, and in it he spent the remainder of his life. He paid the builders for the work as they progressed in it, they being in poor circumstances. One of their receipts, penned by Andrews, is in my possession.

I

For the information of the curious in portraits, may add that Mr. W. H. Andrews of Royston has recently caused a fresh impression of his father's portrait to be struck off. Knightsbridge.

H. G. D.

Portrait of Cromwell (Vol. vi., p. 55.).—One of your Correspondents lately asked whether "one of the portraits of Cromwell were not missing?" There is a remarkably good half-length, attri buted by connoisseurs to Walker, at Newbridge House, co. Dublin, among a collection made by Pilkington. Can this be the one for which he inquires? Is it known how many likenesses of URSULA. Cromwell were taken by Walker?

Foundation Stones (Vol. v., p. 585.; Vol. vi., p. 20.).— As a Note upon this subject, permit me to send you the inscription which (according to

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