Feb. 3. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



93 



passed two long summer days in copying her lays: 'She 

 never heard these poems imputed to any but Ossian and 

 other bards of the Fingalian age.' She firmly believed 

 that the very words of these poems were those of the 

 Fingalians. She never heard of the Macpherson contro- 

 versy, nor that ever the poems of Ossian were in print." 



In addition to this, I may add, that when I 

 attended University and King's College, Aberdeen, 

 there were several students from Nova Scotia. 

 We all lodged in the same house. Our conversa- 

 tion one evening happened to turn on the Poems 

 of Ossian. I asked if they were known in Nova 

 Scotia ? I was told, that many of the people who 

 had emigrated from the Highlands could repeat 

 many lines of his poems ; although they could 

 neither read nor write, and that they had never 

 heard of Macpherson. W. G. 



Macduff. 



Books chained in Churches (Vol. viii., pp. 93. 

 206. 273. 328. ; Vol. x., pp. 174. 393.). — As re- 

 ference has several times been made in your pages 

 to this ancient custom, perhaps you may not deem 

 the following unworthy of your notice. The 

 usage, it is evident, was owing to a scarcity of 

 books, and may be traced back to distant ages. 

 It was common in St. Bernard's time, for he says, 

 in Serm. IX. de Divers. No. 1. : 



" Et est velut communis quidam liber, et catena alli- 

 gatus, ut assolet, sensibilis mundus iste, ut in eo sapien- 

 tiam Dei legat, quicumque voluerit." 



The saint does not here mention churches as con- 

 nected with this custom, for he spoke of what was 

 known to all. But his meaning is more clearly 

 set forth by St. Thomas a Villanova, who was 

 born in 1480, in his " Concio prima" in Festo Sti 

 Augustini, No. 3. He says, — 



" Unde Bernardus, mundum istum sensibilem, librum 

 communem catena ligatum appellat, ut in eo sapientiam 

 legat quicumque voluerit, sicut solent esse in Ecclesiis ca- 

 thedralibus breviaria promiscuse multitudini exposita, 

 catenulaque appensa." 



J.N. 



Greenwich. 



Prophecies of Nostradamus, Marino, and Joa- 

 chim (Vol. X., p. 486.). — 



" Scrisse gia Xostrodamo in un Tacuino 

 Autor, che mai non disse la bugia ; 

 L'istesso afferma un' altra Profetia 

 Del reverendo Abbate Gioacchino ; 

 Che quando una bestiaccia da molino 

 Parlar con voce humana s'udiria. 

 Subito 1' Antechristo nasceria 

 E '1 fin del Mondo sarebbe vicino." 



Marino, La Murtoleide, Fisch. xlviii., 

 ed. Spira, 1619. 



H. B. C. 

 . U. Club. 



The Divining Rod (Vol. x. passim}. — Perhaps, 

 like many of your correspondents, I had imagined 

 that the supposed properties of the divining rod 



had been a discovery recently made, either by 

 that great American artist, Mr. Barnum, or by 

 one of the Dii minores of this country. To my 

 mortification, however, I find that it is " as old as 

 the hills," or at least cotemporaneous with the 

 " Sortes Virgilianse," et id genus omne. I have 

 before me The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley, 

 in two vols. 12mo., London, printed in 1681 ; and 

 in one of his "Pindarique Odes," addressed to 

 Mr. Hobs (vol. i. p. 41.), I find the following 

 lines : 



" To walk iuTuines, like vain ghosts, we love. 

 And with fond divining wands. 

 We search among the dead 

 For treasures buried." 



And to these lines is added (p. 43.) the following 

 note : 



"Virgula Divina, or divining wand, is a two-forked 

 branch of a hazel tree, which is used for the finding out, 

 either of veins, or hidden treasures of gold or silver ; and 

 being carried about, bends downwards (or rather is said 

 to do so) when it comes to the place where they lye." 



D. W. S. 



Amontillado Sherry (Vol. xi., p. S9.). — Mosto 

 (French, mout; German, must), or raw wine, is 

 made up and flavoured by the addition of the wine 

 grown in the district of Montilla. The product 

 is Amontillado, or Montillated sherry. This is 

 the real derivation of the term. I do not pretend 

 to deny the peculiarity of the fermentation of 

 Montilla wine. H. F. B. 



Mortality in August (Vol. x., p. 304.). — Sep- 

 tember will, I think, be foutid to be the month of 

 greatest mortality in most of the plague years, 

 although it does not appear to have been the case 

 at Cambridge in 1666, or at Bury in 1637. From 

 the extracts from the registers of St. Mary's, Bury 

 St. Edmunds, printed in Tymms's History of that 

 church, it appears that in 1544 " the highest rate 

 of mortality was in August and September, when 

 45 persons in the one month, and 75 in the other, 

 are entered with the plague mark." In 1637 

 there were 74 in July, 128 in August, and 117 in 

 September. Busiensis. 



Clay Tobacco-pipes (Vol. xi., p. 37.). — The 

 Hunts appear to have been a family of pipe- 

 makers, but where established I am unable to 

 state. In my collection of old pipes from various 

 localities, there are now about fifty different 

 marks, and amongst them are two with the name 

 in question, but of different individuals, " iohn 

 HVNT " and " THOMAS HVNT." One was found in 

 London, the other at Ogden St. George in Wilt- 

 shire. In both cases the letters are sunk, not 

 embossed; the v is substituted for the u, the A 

 has a cross-bar at top, and in one the n and t are 

 combined like a monogram. Jeffry Hunt is new 

 to me. Pipes of the seventeenth century are often 



