404 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2n'> S. V. 124,, May 15. '58. 



if it is certain that Col. Tolmach came over with 

 William, or whether he joined the army in Eng- 

 land. J. BoSWOBTH. 

 Islip, Oxford. 



Mediceval Seals and Exchanges of Seals. — Mr. 

 Doubleday's collection of matrices and casts of 

 ancient seals, alluded to by Rusticus Mus in " N. 

 & Q." (2"'* S. V. 367.), was purchased by the Bri- 

 tish Museum after his death, a few years ago. 

 The address of Mr. Ready*, also referred to by 

 him, is, I understand, " High Street, Lowestoft, 

 Suffolk." Mr. Redhead of Cambridge was named 

 as having such things for sale in " N. & Q." (2°'* 

 S. V. 325.) ; and should there be any other col- 

 lectors in England or Ireland, similar to him and 

 Mr. Ready, their names and addresses would, I 

 am satisfied, be very valuable to many, besides 

 myself. Mr. Henry Laing, Elder Street, Edin- 

 burgh, is the only person in Scotland I am aware 

 of who has casts of old seals for sale. 



I regret that I have yet had no reply from any 

 Irish collector to my communication to •' N. & Q." 

 (2"'' S. V. 128.), as to an exchange of casts of an- 

 cient Scottish seals for similar ones connected with 

 Ireland, as I am still very desirous of making such 

 exchanged. Aliquis. 



The person who makes and sells most excellent 

 casts of these seals is Mr. R. Ready of Lowestoft, 

 in Suffolk, not Redhead of Cambridge, as is stated 

 (2"'* S. V. 325.) in error. I can strongly recom- 

 mend him to all who desire such casts. His col- 

 lection is very large, and his productions are good 

 in all respects. They are also sold at a reasona- 

 ble price. C. C. Babington. 



Cambridge. 



Robertson's Sehnon^ (2°* S. v. 147.) — The ex- 

 pression, " softens the eye of truth," is neither 

 common-place nor a misprint, but beautifully il- 

 lustrates the accuracy of the writer's knowledge 

 of Scripture, and the well-known truthfulness of 

 his own character. Just as we may employ the 

 expression, " disease softens the brain," so we 

 may also make use of the parallel, " disease 

 softens the eye." By disease or old age the eye 

 of the body naturally softens or degenerates ; its 

 tissues lose their tensity, and its fluids become 

 absorbed. The eye flattens or loses its natural 

 convexity. If, then, we take " truth " spoken of 

 in the passage in question, as truth in character 

 even more than truth in language, we may at once 

 pronounce the expression, " eye of truth," to be 

 drawn from St. Matthew vi. 22., " If thine eye be 

 single or sound, [aTrXoiis], thy whole body shall be 

 full of light." Reference to Parkhurst s Lexicon 



* [Mr. W. J. Bernhard Smith, in forwarding to us Mr. 

 Eeady's address, adds : " his impressions from ancient 

 matrices are remarkable for their beauty, and his prices 

 are very moderate." — Ed. "N. & Q."] 



corroborates this interpretation of airAoOs : it means, 

 applied to the eye, clear. " It is opposed to an 

 eye overgrown with fdm, which would obstruct 

 the sight.*' iyoddr'idgQ: "Sound. Both Chrysos- 

 tom and Theophylact represent the Greek word 

 as synonymous here with vyi'fis, sanus." 



But that this is Mr. Robertson's meaning of the 

 expression he uses, is plain from p. 323. of the 

 same vol. Vide Sermon " The Kingdom of the 

 Truth." A Friend of Robertson. 



Game of '' One-and- Thirty" (2°^^ S. v. 276.) — 

 The Academy of Play by the Abbe Belcour con- 

 tains instructions for playing " The Game of La 

 Belle, the Flux, and Thirty-one." A notice of the 

 game, and of the above-named scarce book is in p. 

 356. of The Doctor, edit. 1847. Gilbert, 



Gravity (2"*^ S. v. 312.) — Is it not Newton of 

 whom it is told that he, " once on a time," de- 

 clared that he had read Shakspeare through, but 

 could not find that he (the said Shakspeare) 

 proved anything ? Probably ; but I find a pas- 

 sage in his plays which ought to have been as 

 suggestive to Sir Isaac as the much-talked-of 

 " apple " itself : — 



« The strong base and building of my love 



Is as the very centre of the earth. 

 Drawing all thitigs to it." 



Troilus and Cressida, Act IV. Sc. 2. 

 A Desultory Reader. 

 Jersey. 



" How do Oysters make their Shells?'' (2"'^ S. v. 

 267. 326.) — Shakspeare'a fool asked King Lear a 

 question that three centuries have not been able 

 to answer, and which is not, I fear, very easy to 

 solve. The geologists have been able to throw 

 little light on the mysteries of the formation of 

 chalk and flint. More than forty years since 

 Bakewell thus wrote on the question : — 



"It is, however, a curious but undoubted fact, that no 

 inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface has been 

 formed by organic secretion, and the process is still going 

 on rapidly and extensively in the Southern Ocean. Ac- 

 cording to the observations of voyagers, islands and reefs 

 of coral rocks are raised from vast depths in the com-se of 

 a few years. Thus millions of minute marine polypi are 

 preparing future abodes for other classes of animals of 

 larger size, and living in another element. From whence 

 do these innumerable zoophytes and shell-fish procure the 

 lime that, mixt with a small portion of animal matter, 

 forms the solid covering by which they are protected? 

 Have they the power of separating it from other sub- 

 stances, or the still more extraordinary faculty of produc- 

 ing it from simple elements ? The latter I consider more 

 probable, for the polypi, which accumulate rocks of coral 

 from unfathomable depths, have no power of locomotion ; 

 their growth is rapid, and the gravity of calcareous mat- 

 ter they produce in a short space of time can scarcely be 

 supposed to exist in the waters of the ocean to which 

 they have access, as the sea- water contains but a minute 

 portion of lime." — Introduction to Geology, by Robert 

 Bakewell, '2nd edition, 1815. 



Thanking Mr. Byng and the other contributors 



