Dec. 28. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



523 



for weighing coins, is intended to have a general 

 reference, he will find many passages alluding to 

 the practice amongst the ancient Romans, who 

 manufactured balances of various kinds for that 

 purpose : one for gold {statera auraria, Varro Ap. 

 Non., p. 455., ed. ]\Iercer. ; Cic. Or. ii. 38.) ; 

 another for silver (Varro De Vit. P. R., lib. ii.) ; 

 and another for small pieces of money (t)-utina 

 momentuna pro parva modicaque pecunia. Isidor. 

 Or-ig., xvi. 25. 4.). The mint is represented on the 

 reverse of numerous imperial coins and medals by 

 three female figures, each of whom holds a pair of 

 scales, one for each of the three metals ; and in 

 Rich's Ilhistrated Companion to the Latin Dic- 

 tionary, under the word Libra, there is exhibited 

 a balance of very peculiar construction, from an 

 original in the cabinet of the Grand Duke at 

 Florence, which has a scale at one end of the 

 beam, and a fi.xed weight at the opposite extremity, 

 "to test the just weight of a given quantity, and 

 supposed to have been employed at the mint for 

 estimating the pi-oper weight of coinage." 



IMONETA. 



Umbrellas (Vol. i., p. 414. etc.). — To the exten- 

 sive exhibition oUmihrellas formed through the exer- 

 tions of the right worthy editor of the " Notes and 

 Queries" and his very numerous friends, I am 

 happy to have it in my power to make an addition 

 of considerable curiosity, it being of much earlier 

 date than any specimen at present in the collec- 

 tion : — 



" Of doues I haue a dainty paire 

 Which, when you please to take the aier. 

 About your head sliall gently houer, 

 Your cleere browe from the suiirfe to couer, 

 And with their nimble wings shall fan you 

 That neither cold nor heate shall tan you, 

 And, like vtnbrellas, with tlieir feathers 

 SIteelJ you in all sorts of weathers." 



Mic/tael Drayton, 1630. 



Had not the exhibition been limited to um- 

 brellas used in England, I could have produced 

 oriental specimens, very like those now in fashion 

 here, of the latter part of the si.Kteenth century. 



Bolton Corney. 



Croziers and Pastoral Staves (Vol. ii., p. 412.). 

 — The staff with the cross appears on the monu- 

 ment of Abp. Warliam, in Canterbury Cathedral ; 

 on the brass of Abp. Waldeijy (1397), in 'West- 

 niinster Abbey ; and on that of Abp. Cranley 

 (1417), in New College Chapel, Oxford. 



'J'lie crook is bent ontwards in the brasses to the 

 following bisiiop.s: — H|). Trelliek (13G0), Here- 

 ford Cathedral; I3p. Stanley (1515), IManchester 

 Cathedral; Rp. Goodrich (1554), Ely Cathedral ; 

 and Rp. Pursglovc (1579), Tideswell Church, 

 Derbyshire. J. I. D. 



i3rt{^ccnanr0tis. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC. 



We never longed so much for greater space for our 

 Notes upon Books as we do at this season of gifts 

 and good will, when the Christmas Books demand our 

 notice. 



Never did writer pen a sweeter tale than that which 

 the author of Mary Barton has just produced under the 

 title of The Muorland Cottage. It is a purely English 

 story, true to nature as a daguerreotype, without one 

 touch of exaggeration, without the smallest striving 

 after effect, yet so skilfully is it told, so effectually does 

 it tell, so strongly do Blaggie's trials and slngle-mind- 

 edness excite our sympatliies, that it were hard to 

 decide whether our tears are disposed to flow the more 

 readily at those trials, or at her quiet heroic perse- 

 verance in doing tight by which they are eventually 

 surmounted. The Moorland Cottage with its skilful 

 and characteristic woodcut illustrations by Birket 

 Foster, will be a favourite for many and many a 

 Christmas yet to come. 



Rich in all the bibliopolic "pearl and gold" of a 

 quaint and fanciful binding, glancing with holly berries 

 and mistletoe, Mr. Bogue presents us with a volume as 

 interesting as it is characteristic and elegant, Christinas 

 with the Poets. .\ more elegantly printed book was 

 never produced; and it is illustrated with tifty en- 

 gravings designed and drawn on wood by Birket 

 Foster; engraved by Henry Vizetelly, and printed in 

 tints in a way to render most effective the artist's 

 tiistefui, characteristic, and very able drawings. The 

 volume is, as it were, a casket, in which are enshrined 

 all the gems which could be dug out of the rich mines 

 of English poetry; and when we say tliat the fiist 

 division treats of Carols from the Anglo-Norman 

 period to the time of the Reformation ; that these 

 are followed by Christmas Poems of the Elizabethan 

 period, by Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, and their great 

 cotemporaries ; that to these succeed Herriek's 

 Poems, and so on, till we have the Cliristmas verses 

 of our own century, by Soutliey, Wordsworth, Scott, 

 Shelley, Tennyson, &c., we have done more than all 

 our praise could do, to prove that a fitter present to one 

 who loves poetry could not be found than Christmas 

 with the Poets. 



While if it be a little lover of poetry — mind, not one 

 who little loves poetry, but one who listens witli de- 

 light to those beloved ditties of the olden times, which 

 as we know charmed Shakspeart's childhood, — learn 

 that an English lady with the hand and taste of an 

 artist, guided and refined by that purest and holiest of 

 feelings, a mother's love, has illustrated those dear old 

 songs in a way to delight all children; and at the same 

 time charm the most refined. The Ilhistrated Ditties of 

 the OlilcH Time is in sooth a delightful volume, and if a 

 love of the beautiful be as closely connected «iih a love 

 of the moral as wise heads tell us, we know no more 

 agreeable way of early inculcating morality than by 

 circulating this splendid edition of our time-honoured 

 Nursery Rhymes. 



But we fancy the taste of some of our readers may 

 not yet have been hit upon. Let them try The Story of 

 Jack and the Giants, illustrated by Richard Doyle ; and 



