Aug. 28. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



205 



Which quivering still, in changeful turnings tost. 



May touch the letter, which shall please thee most. 



Emblem of tliis a second orb compose. 



Alike with k-tters grac'd in order'd rows ; 



Next place the steel, to thy first pattern true, 



From the same stone whose pow'r attractive grew, 



This faithful instrument of love sincere. 



To distant climes thy parting friend shall bear. 



At first inform'd on what peculiar day 



To mark th' instructive steel, and note its varied way. 



If to your distant friend, due terms agreed. 

 You long the secrets of your soul to speed, 

 The letters mark successive as they stand. 

 The ready needle move with meaning hand ; 

 And as just thought requires, not wanton chance, 

 Now here, now there, direct the slender lance ; 

 To each the motion of thy steel dispense, 

 Lo, letters leap obedient into sense ! 

 Meantime thy distant friend, with conscious eye. 

 Perceives the fond spontaneous sympathy ; 

 While his own steel in like rotation flies, 

 And bids the gradual syllables arise : 

 Each word he marks to full perfection brought. 

 And eyes th' expressive point, interpreter of thought. 



He, too, when rests unmov'd his potent spell. 

 Each sentiment responsive can retell ; 

 Rouses alike his letters from their rest. 

 And in return unloads his grateful breast. 



Oh ! that this tale would grow to lasting fame. 

 And practice authorise the letter'd frame ! 

 Then might the kind epistle safely stray, 

 Nor fear the frowning thief nor wat'ry way: 

 Princes might deign to form the gay device. 

 While we dull scribes from sable seas arise, 

 Wash'd from our ink, nor doom'd to write again. 

 Place on Magnesia's shores the votive pen. 



Ml20rPA*02." 



S. W. SiNGEB. 



MUMMIES OF ECCLESIASTICS. 



(Vol. vi., p. 53.) 



In Mrs. Trollope's Belgium and Western Ger- 

 many^ the following passage is found touching the 

 Kreutzberg monks ; 



" The wonderful state of preservation in which these 

 bodies remain, though constantly exposed to the atmo- 

 sphere by being thus exhibited, is attributed by good 

 Catholics to the peculiar sanctity of the place; but to 

 those who do not receive this solution of the mystery, 

 it is one of great difficulty. The dates of their inter- 

 ment vary from 1400 to 1713 ; and the oldest is quite 

 as fresh as the most recent. There are twenty-six, 

 fully exposed to view, and apparently many more 

 beneath them. From the elder ones, the coffins have 

 either crumbled away, or the bodies were buried with- 

 out them. In some of these ghastly objects the flesh 

 is still full, and almost shapely upon the legs; in others 

 it appears to be gradually drying away, and the bones 

 are here and there becoming visible. The condition of 

 the face also varies very greatly, though by no means 

 in proportion to the antiquity of each. In many, the 



nose, lips, and beard remain ; and in one, the features 

 were so little disturbed, that — 



' All unruffled was his face. 

 We trusted his soul had gotten grace.' 



Round others, the dust lies where it had fallen as it 

 had dropped, grain by grain, from the mouldering 

 cheeks ; and the head grins from beneath the cowl 

 nearly in the state of a skeleton. The garments are 

 almost in the same unequal degree of preservation ; 

 for in many the white material is still firm, though 

 discoloured ; while in others it is dropping away in 

 fragments. The shoes of all are wonderfully perfect. 



" The last person buried in this vault was one who 

 acted as gardener to the com.munity. His head is 

 crowned with a wreath of flowers, which still preserves 

 its general form ; nay, the largest blossoms may yet be 

 distinguished from the smaller ones; but the withered 

 leaves lie mixed with his fallen hair on either side." — 

 Paris edition, vol. i. p. 158. 



H.W.G. 



Elgin. 



KICHARD BAXTER. 



(Vol. vi., p. 86.) 



Your correspondent R. G. wishes me to verify a 

 severe criticism which he transcribes from a work 

 entitled The Scholar armed against the Errors of 

 the Time, 1795, and in which it is said that, instead 

 of the " kingdom of heaven," as it is in the Scrip- 

 ture, Baxter calls it " parliament of heaven." 

 Now, for your correspondent's information, I may 

 be allowed to state that Baxter has done nothing 

 of the kind. He never throughout the Saint's 

 Rest fails to employ the Scriptural representations 

 of the heavenly world; and though he uses the 

 phrase " parliament of heaven," it is merely in a 

 figurative sense, not instead of the " kingdom of 

 heaven," but as a figure which it would be necessary 

 to adopt in contrasting the inhabitants of heaven 

 with those who were wont to meet in the Parlia- 

 ment that then existed. It is further said that into 

 this " parliament of heaven " he puts some of the 

 regicides ; that is, I suppose, Brooke, Pirn, Hamp- 

 den, White, &c. But these were not regicides ; at 

 least not in the opinion of very many who were 

 thoroughly competent to judge of their characters. 

 Some think Oliver Cromwell was a regicide, but 

 not so others, — Thomas Carlyle to wit, and no 

 mean authority. The men whom Baxter put in 

 heaven were those whom he fully believed to be 

 worthy of a place there ; whom he looked upon as 

 having wrought righteousness and peace upon the 

 earth. That he should have left them out of the 

 later editions of his work was a sad defection of 

 judgment ; for it was like blotting them out of the 

 book of life. He did this, not because his views of 

 their history and acts were altered, but that in the 

 omission he would be enabled to please the enemies 

 of Puritanism. Of course this failed, and he did 



