SIR.-Your Correspondent A. in your March Notes, says that in T. C. Croker's "Fairy Legends," he states that he knew Daniel O'Rourke well, and that he was an old man when he told him the story of his flight to the moon on the 25th June, 1813, observing that "all this seems very circumstantial." Now Prince Puckler Muscaw is no less circumstantial, when in his Irish p. 348-9, he says—

rose, with this distich:

It occurs on a Wexford Token, and is repeated on another of Carrickmacross. Humourous and witty as the Irish of all classes are known to be, I certainly am disappointed in not finding more of their Tokens bearing punning or rhyming mottoes.

I have only to add that the list of this class of Tokens might be much enlarged by patient research among the numerous private collections that exist; although it is not all collectors who will permit their stores to be accessible, or subservient to any literary or useful purpose.

They present a remarkable episode in the annals of Coinage, and I doubt whether any country beside our own can produce so singular a series. They are not

"October 2, 1828.-I am just returned from an excursion of sixteen miles with Colonel W- to Hungry Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay, remarkable for its waterfall and for Thomas O'Rourke's flight to the moon on an eagle's back which began here, and has so often been related in prose and verse. Even in Germany this amusing tale has been repeatedly translated, and has probably fallen into your hands. The hero of the story is a gamekeeper of Lord B's who is still alive, and almost always drunk. On our return Colonel W- introduced him to me at the Inn. He is now extremely proud of his celebrity, and seemed to me when I saw him to be projecting another visit to the moon."

Notes," might have the effect of setting at rest much misrepresentation upon both sides respecting that lamentable event-which is now matter of history alone.

Belfast, July 1, 1852.

E. C.

"PEARLE OF PRAYER."

Longsight, near Manchester, 1st July, 1852.

66

SIR,-I should feel obliged to any of your Correspondents, or readers of your Current Notes," if they could give me any information of the following small work which I am unable myself to trace in any Catalogue, and also several of the best bibliographical works. Mr. G. Willis. J. B. RONDEAU.

NARNE, (By Mr. William P. of Dysert.) PEARLE OF PRAYER, most pretious and powerful, &c. 18mo. Dedicated to Charles I. (dated from Dysart, the 28th May, 1630). And afterward to the Right Virtuous and Worshipfull Patrons of this Famous Citie of Edinburgh, David Aikenhead, most worthie Lord Provest, &c., and to the whole Counsell, &c. of Edinburgh, &c. &c. 456 pp. Concluding with a part of a page of "Faults escaped," on the recto of last leaf.

MR. WILLIS,-Any of your American Correspondents who can supply you with a copy of some verses written by the unfortunate Major André under the above title, and published in New York on the very day that he was taken by a party of General Wayne's soldiers (26th September, 1780) would very much oblige your Correspondent. The circumstances of Major André's execution as a spy soon afterwards at Tappan or Orange Town, where General Grey two years before cut up (or rather murdered) Washington's Dragoons, whom he surprised, and all of whom he killed while asleep, may have had some influence upon the fate of Major André, but I am inclined to think that his satirical verses upon General Wayne, entitled "The Cow Chase," may have deter

(He)

MYSTICAL MEANING OF THE HEBREW LETTER TAW. SIR,-By a mistake of your printer, the letter is substituted for (Taw), in Mr. Williams's note of enquiry respecting the mystical meaning of the latter, which appeared among your "Current Notes" for June, (P. 55). Should the Rev. Mr. Brown offer any explaI will respectfully bow to that learned gentleman's nation for your Correspondent's information, as requested, superior erudition. I would merely refer your Correspondent to Claude Paradin's Devises Heroiques, where he will find it stated

"La lettre Hebraique, THAU, est un sainct et salutifere signe, et de croix, selon sainct Hierosme sur S. Marc. De tel signe, jadis Ezechiel en esprit prophetique, vid marquer par l'Ange les fideles au front, reconnus tristes en leurs cœurs des abominations commises en Hierusalem, au moyen dequoy furent sauvez, et les obstinez par sentence divine furent soudainement occis. Davantage signifie ceste THAU Consommation et pour autant est finale de l'Alphabet des Hebrieux, clouant et consommant iceluy, come Alef le comence. Chose qui n'est jamais ainsi advenue sans grand mystere, veu que nostre Redempteur, estant mis en Croix, vint à proferer ces derniers mots, avant la mort, CoNSUMMATUM EST, manifestant par iceux, la consommation de toutes propheties et écritures, estre a venue à celle heure qu'il estoit eslevé sus le signe de ceste lettre. Laquelle quant à sa forme, estant peinte enlettre versale, represente mieux signe de Croix qu' autrement, et la peignent tant les Grecs, que les Latins, en propre forme de Creix, jusques aujourd'huy, T. Telle est doncques la vraye enseigne, ou estendart, des militans en l'Eglise Chrestienne."

Paradin's little book is one of such extreme rarity, that I have made this quotation from it for Mr. Williams. I never saw a copy of it perfect, and you may remember that the one I purchased from you wanted the title-page. It is not noticed by Watt in his valuable Bibliotheca Britannica;" but was, I believe, published in 1610.

LITERARY ENQUIRY ANSWERED.

British Museum, July, 1852. SIR,-I beg to inform your Correspondent D. B. H. (in reply to his enquiry of April 25, which appeared in your "Current Notes" for last month, p. 55), that John Vincart was born at Lille in Flanders, 1593, and became a Jesuit at the age of twenty. He studied at the college of his Order at Lille and Tournai, and distinguished himself by his talent for Latin Poetry. The first work he published was entitled "Virgo Cancellata in Ecclesia D. Petri Insulæ cultu et miraculis celebris, 1636;" a History of our Lady of the Lattice in St. Peter's Church at Lille. A second edition appeared in 1638. Having been pressed to undertake a translation of this his first production, he published it in French in 1671, with additional particulars of several miracles of which he was an eye-witness. In 1640 appeared "Sacrarum Heroidum Epistolæ." The author in his preface professes an admiration for Ovid; and seems to have chosen him as his model, substituting Christian heroes for those of the Latin Poet. He declares that it was composed chiefly for his own amusement, and to relieve his mind from care. It is a thin 12mo. volume,

is dedicated to the General of the Order, and contains twenty-four Epistles, in Latin Elegiac verse. Each epistle is adorned with a neat allegorical vignette, engraved by Rucholle. The third and last book is devoted to Saints of the Order. His poetry is good, and there are some passages of great beauty. I have not space for a quotation, and can only give a few of the titlesMary to Jesus- Anna to Tobias-Loyola to IgnatiusKotska to Our Blessed Lady-Aloysius to a fountain, &c. The prologue to the first Epistle relates, that it was the custom of the Jews to visit the Temple three times during the year; and so Joseph with Mary and the child Jesus, who was then twelve years of age, set out to Jerusalem. After making their offering, they return homewards to Nazareth; but Jesus remains secretly behind. When Mary sees this, she thinks he must have mingled with the crowd of men who are walking apart from the women; and, bowed down with grief, turns back her footsteps to seek her son. Having sought him for three days in vain, worn out with grief and fatigue, she is represented by the Poet inditing this Epistle-an expression of her maternal love and sorrow at his loss-and breathing forth a prayer for his speedy restoration to her arms. The allegorical vignette represents her and Joseph resting near the city. On a tree sits a solitary dove, which has lost its mate, to which her grief is beautifully compared.

The work passed through several editions. The latest I have seen is dated 1737. There are two copies in the British Museum. John Vincart died at Tournay, 1679. His name does not occur in the Bibliotheca Scriptorum Soc. Jes. by Alegambe, to which your Correspondent refers. Yours truly,

A BOOKWORM.

ANTIQUE GEMS.

66

SIR,-In a very learned and instructive paper, by Mr. Thomas Wright, upon Antiquarian Excavations and Researches in the Middle Ages," printed in the XXXth volume of the Archæologia, that gentleman appears to me to have overlooked an important illustration of his subject, in a seal which is attached to a Charter dated the 17th of Edward I., preserved in the British Museum. The centre is evidently the impression from a head of fine Roman workmanship, while the mediæval letters around it decide that the age of its setting must be about the period of the document to which it is affixed.

I read what remains of the inscription

CREDITE: SIG: EI: SIMO

rection of Mr. Maelzel.

Your namesake, the present Professor Willis of Cambridge, published a small work on the subject in 1821, which satisfactorily established that it was not the result of mechanism, but was wholly controlled by a concealed human agent; and a copy of the Professor's volume, which was an anonymous one, has lately come into my possession, with the following manuscript note:

"At the time when this Analysis was made, Mr. Willis and his sister were my pupils; I am therefore well informed respecting his proceeding. He visited the Automaton many times for the purpose of estimating the dimensions of the compartments within the chest behind which the figure was placed. He then caused to be made a similar chest, and copied the parts of the interior. His sister, who was full grown, entered the chest, and moved through the different compartments. In the prints Mr. W. has given the different positions of the figure by dotted outlines, and has proved the changes to be very easily made, and the spaces quite sufficient to contain any middle-sized person." Mr. Willis.

ALCHEMISTS.

PHILIDOR, JUN.

Lincoln's Inn, July 5th. SIR,-Can any of your Correspondents inform me where I can find a complete list of works on Alchemy. I have a strange fondness for those old Alchemists and Rosicrucians and hunters after the philosopher's stone,

with their crucibles, and retorts, metals, loadstones, and potent influences-strange retired beings who shut themselves up from the world to learn those arts by which they fondly hoped to wield its destiny, who became poor in solving the problem how to obtain unbounded wealth; who in dark rooms and subterranean vaults studied to read the Arcana of Nature's hidden Book; who in the midst of their follies and delusions, straining after impossibilities, are still entitled to our reverence for that application to speculative science which in happier times has formed a Davy or a Newton for the professed discoveries and real inventions which their misdirected studies served occasionally to unfold.

Mr. Willis.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
A CUSTOMER AND AN ALCHEMIST.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MR. Foss, Surgeon, &c. Stockton-upon-Tees, June 30. G. W. has had the pleasure to forward to him the communications received from his American Correspondents respecting the Aztec City and Children, which he hopes may prove acceptable.

"THE PARADISE OF COQUETTES."-Unable to devote any more space to this subject.

T. R. B. thanked. G. W. has not seen the Mona Herald.

The promised paper on the Mistletoe, cannot fail to be acceptable to the readers of " Willis's Current Notes." But every line is an object, in having to deal with scores of communications in eight pages.

W. H.'s note, stands over for the drawing to be engraved from.

(REFORM CLUB).-G. W. cannot answer the question in I. P. S.'s note of 15th June.

No space for extracts from the "New Bedford Mercury" (U. S.) of 20th June, or those sent by SAPHENIO. EARL ST. VINCENT'S MOTTO.-Thanked, but must stand over.