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This most curious volume has been for upwards of a century in the library of St. John's College, as the following printed notice, pasted within the cover, will show:

"In grati animi testificationem, ob plurima Humanitatis officia, a Collegio Divi Joannis Evangelistæ apud Cantabrigienses multifariam collata, librum hunc inter alios lectissimos eidem collegio legavit Illustrissimus Vir, Dominicus Antonius Ferrari, J. U. D. Neapolitanus, 1744.

"Teste,

"J. Creyk."

But this is not all. The College is happy enough to possess a copy of the rare French translation of the same book. This is somewhat larger in size than the original Italian, and consists of sixty-four leaves. It contains, as will be seen by the title-page, some additional matter:

"Dv benefice de Iesvs Christ crvcifie, envers les Chrestiens. Traduict de vulgaire Italien, en langage Françoys. Plus, Vne Traduction de la huytiesme Homelie de sainct Iean Chrysostome, De la femme Cananée: mise de Latin en Françoys. Venez a moy vous tous qui trauaillez et estes chargez, et ie vous soulageray, 1552."

There is an address by the French translator: "Le traducteur a tous les Chrestiens qui sont dessoubz le ciel, Salut;" and at the end of the volume is a "Traduction du Psalme xxxiv." The French version is said to have been first published in 1545. This therefore is not, it would seem, the earliest edition.

This volume also, it may be added, was given to the College by Ferrari.

J. Ayre.

Hampstead.

Minor Notes.

Stone Chisels.—I saw recently an oviform stone implement which had been found on the granite moors of North Cornwall, and apparently had been used as a pickaxe in mining. The following notice shows that such implements were used by the ancient miners in the Lake Superior district:

"The explorers are now much aided by these guiding features, also by pits, which indicate where an ancient race—probably the Aztecs or Toltecs—have carried on their superficial operations on the veins. Some of those I saw were twenty or thirty feet deep, which

must have been the result of much labour, considering their tools—the only trace of which we find in the shape of oviformed stones, with a groove round the centre for the purpose of securing a handle, then to be used as a hammer to shatter the vein-stone after it probably had been reduced by the action of fire and water on the calcareous matter entering into its composition. In favour of this conjecture, quantities of charcoal have been found in the bottom of some of these pits, which are almost effaced by the accumulation of timber decayed and foliage of ages past."—From a letter in the Mining Journal, Jan. 7, 1854.

S. R. Pattison.

Acrostic.—I send you a very curious acrostic, copied from a monument in the Church of St. Germans, Cornwall. You will perceive that it is in memory of "Johannes Glanvill, Minister;" and it is surmounted with the arms of that ancient family:

W. D. F.

Walton.

Simmels.—The Vienna correspondent of The Times, whose letter from "Vienna, March 5th," appeared in that paper on Friday the 10th, mentions a Viennese loaf, the name of which so strongly resembles the simmel of our ancestors as to deserve a Note:

"The Viennese witlings, who are much inclined to abuse the hyperbole, affirm that a magnifying glass will soon be requisite in order to discover the whereabouts of the semmeln, the little wheaten loaves for which Austria is famous."

W. J. T.

Ogborne's History of Essex.—I lately fell in with (at a marine store-shop in Somers Town) some scattered materials in Mrs. Ogborne's handwriting for the above highly interesting but unfinished work. I have not yet sorted them, but I perceive that the MSS. contain some information that was never published, relating to Rochford Hundred, &c. The shopkeeper stated that she had used the greater part of Mrs. Ogborne's papers as waste-paper, but I am not without hopes that she will find more. There is a letter from Mr. Leman of Bath, which is published in the work. I am aware that Mr. Fossett has Mrs. Ogborne's MSS.; but those now in my possession are certainly interesting, and might be, to some future historian of Essex, even valuable. Should I discover anything worth inserting in "N. & Q." on examining the MSS. I will send it.

G. I. S.

Fleas and Bugs.—Has the following explanation of an old saying ever been brought forward, and is it satisfactory? When a person is sent off "with a flea in his ear," the luckless applicant is peremptorily dismissed with an imperative "flee," with the word "flee" sounding in his ear, or, facetiously, "with a flea in his ear."

Apropos of proverbial domestic entomology, is there more than lies on the surface in the elegant simile "As snug as a bug in a rug?" A rough variety of dog was termed