174 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 11- 
to month, during the last ten, fifteen, or twenty 
years. If any of your correspondents can do that, 
or can give me a list of works, periodical or other- 
wise, in which such information is to be found, 
they will greatly oblige me. 
Can any of your correspondents inform me who 
is the author of the following lines ? — 
“ Though with forced mirth we oft may soothe a smart, 
What seemeth well, is oft not well, I ween; 
For many a burning breast and bleeding heart, 
Hid under guise of mirth is often seen.” 
Roypon. 
Rev. J. Edwards on Metal for Telescopes. — I 
shall feel obliged if any of your correspondents 
can inform me where I can find a paper, called, 
“ Directions for making the best Composition for 
the Metals of reflecting Telescopes, and the Method 
of grinding, polishing, and giving the great Specu- 
lum the true parabolic figure,” by the Rev. John 
Edwards, B.A. 
I saw it some years ago in an old journal or 
transactions, but Capt. Cuttle’s maxim not having 
been then given to the world, and being now 
unable to make a search, I avail myself of your 
valuable publication. gn 
Colonel Blood’s House. — The notorious Colonel 
Blood is said to have resided at a house in Peter 
Street, Westminster, Tradition points out the 
corner of Tufton Street. Can any of your readers 
give me information as to the correctness of this 
statement ? E. F. R. 
John Lucas’s MS. Collection of English Songs. 
— Ames, the author of the Typographical Anti- 
quities, is said to have had in his possession a folio 
MS. volume of English Songs or Ballads, com- 
posed or collected by one John Lucas, about the 
year 1450. If this MS. is in private hands, the 
possessor would confer an essential service on the 
antiquarian public by informing them of its con- 
tents. E. F,R. 
Theophania, — I send you a copy, verbatim et 
literatim, of the title-page of an old book in my 
possession, in the hope that some one of your 
correspondents may be able to furnish me with 
information respecting its author. I believe the 
work to be a very scarce one, having never seen 
or heard of any other copy than my own. 
“ Theophania : or severall Modern Histories Repre- 
sented by way of Romance; and Politickly Discours’d 
upon: by an English Person of Quality. 
«“ Stat. Theb, 
Nec divinam Sydneida tenta 
Sed longe sequere, & Vestigia semper adora. 
“ London, Printed by T. Newcomb, for Thomas 
Heath, and are to be sold at his Shop in Russel -street, 
near the Piazza’s of Covent Garden, 1655.” 
Henry Kersey. 
Ancient MS. Account of Britain. —JI find the 
following note in Cooper’s Thesaurus Lingue Ro- 
mane et Britannice, Impressum Londini, 1578, 
under the word Britannia : — 
« About 30 yeares since it happened in Wilshire, at 
Juy church, about twoo miles from Salisbury, as men 
digged to make a foundation, they founde an hollowe 
stone covered with another stone, wherein they founde 
.| a booke, having in it little above xx leaves (as they 
sayde) of verye thicke velume, wherein was some thing 
written, But when it was shewed to priestes and 
chanons, which were there, they would not read it. 
Wherefore after they had tossed it from one to another 
(by the meanes whereof it was torne) they did neglect 
and cast it aside. Long after, a piece thereof happened 
to come to my handes; which notwithstanding it was 
al to rent and defaced, I shewed to mayster Richarde 
Pace, then chiefe Secretarie to the kinges most Royall 
maiestie, whereof he exceedingly reioysed. But because 
it was partly rent, partly defaced and bloured with 
weate which had fallen on it, he could not find any one 
sentence perfite. Notwithstanding after long beholding, 
hee shewed mee, it seemed that the sayde booke con- 
tayned some auncient monument of this Ile, and that 
he perceyved this word Prytania, to bee put for Bry- 
tannia. But at that time he said no more to me.” 
Cooper’s conjecture founded on this is that 
Britain is derived from the Greek word Prytania, 
which, according to Suidas, “ doth,” with a circum- 
flexed aspiration, signifie metalles, fayres, and 
markets.” ‘Calling the place by that which came 
out of it, as one would say, hee went to market, 
when he goeth to Antwarpe,” &c. Has this been 
noticed elsewhere ? J.G, 
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC. 
The announcement recently made in The Athe- 
neum of the intention of the Government to print 
in a neat and inexpensive form, a series of 
Calendars or Indices of the valuable historical 
documents in the State Paper Office, cannot but 
be very gratifying to all students of our national 
history —in the first place, as showing an inten- 
tion of opening those documents to the use of 
historical inquirers, on a plan very different from 
that hitherto pursued ; and, in the next, it is to be 
hoped, as indicating that the intention formerly 
announced of placing the State Paper Office under 
the same regulation as the Record Offices, with the 
drawback of fees for searches, is not to be per- 
severed in. 
To the citizens of London, to its occasional 
visitants, as well as to the absent friends and 
relatives of those who dwell within its walls, 
Mr. Archer’s projected work, entitled Vestiges of 
Old London, a series of finished Etchings from 
original Drawings, with Descriptions, Historical 
Associations, and other References, will be an object 
of especial interest. The artistical portion will, 
we believe, be mainly founded on the collection of 
