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As I wish thoroughly to dispose of the question, I shall divide my communication on Julin into two parts, of which the above is the first. I reserve my own remarks till all the evidence has been heard.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Minor Notes.

Anecdote of Curran.

—During one of the circuits, Curran was dining with a brother advocate at a small inn kept by a respectable woman, who, to the well ordering of her establishment, added a reputation for that species of apt and keen reply, which sometimes supplies the place of wit. The dinner had been well served, the wine was pronounced excellent, and it was proposed that the hostess should be summoned to receive their compliments on her good fare. The Christian name of this purveyor was Honoria, a name of common occurrence in Ireland, but which is generally abbreviated to that of Honor. Her attendance was prompt, and Curran, after a brief eulogium on the dinner, but especially the wine, filled a bumper, and, handing it, proposed as a toast, "Honor and Honesty." His auditor took the glass, and with a peculiarly arch smile, said, "Our absent friends," and having drank off her amended toast, she curtseyed and withdrew.

M. W. B.

Difficulty of getting rid of a Name.

—The institution founded in Gower Street under the name of the University of London, lived for ten years under that name, and, since, for fifteen years, under the name of University College, a new institution receiving the name of the University of London. A few years after the change of name, a donor left reversionary property to the London University in Gower Street, which made it necessary to obtain the assistance of the Court of Chancery in securing the reversion to its intended owners. A professor of the College in Gower Street received a letter, dated from Somerset House (where the University is), written by the Vice-Chancellor of the University himself, and addressed, not to the University College, but to the University of London. And in a public decision, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Visitor of Dulwich College, which appears in The Times of July 21, it is directed that certain scholars are to proceed for instruction to some such place as "King's College or the London University." This is all worthy of note, because we often appeal to old changes of name in the settlement of dates. When this decision becomes very old, it may happen that its date will be brought into doubt by appeal to the fact that the place of instruction (what is now the University giving no instruction but only granting degrees, and to students of King's College among others) ceased to have the title of University in 1837. What so natural as to argue that the Archbishop, himself a visitor of King's College, cannot have failed to remember this. A reflected doubt may be thrown upon some arguments relating to dates in former times.

M.

House of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

—The Note on his mother, in Vol. iii., p. 492., reminds me of making the following one on himself, which may be worth a place in your columns. When lately passing through the village of Harold's Cross, near Dublin, a friend pointed out to me a high antiquated-looking house in the village, which he said had been occupied by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and in which he had planned many of his designs. The house appears to be in good preservation, and is still occupied.

R. H.

Fairy Dances.

—It might perhaps throw some light on this fanciful subject, were we to view it in connexion with the operation of the phenomenon termed the "odylic light," emitted from magnetic substances. The Baron von Riechenbach, in his Researches on Magnetism, &c., explains the cause of somewhat similar extraordinary appearances in the following manner:—

"High on the Brocken there are rocky summits which are strongly magnetic, and cause the needle to deviate: these rocks contain disseminated magnetic iron ore; ... the necessary consequence is that they send up odylic flames.... Who could blame persons imbued with the superstitious feelings of their age, if they saw, under these circumstances, the devil dancing with his whole train of ghosts, demons, and witches? The revels of the Walpurgisnacht must now, alas! vanish, and give place to the sobrieties of science—science, which with her touch dissipates one by one all the beautiful but dim forms evoked by phantasy."

Should such a thing as the odylic light satisfactorily explain the phenomenon of ghosts, fairies, &c., we should happily be relieved from the awkward necessity of continuing to treat their existence as "old wives' fables," or the production of a disordered imagination.

J. H. KERSHAW.

Æsop.

—It may be said, at first sight, "Why, every body knows all about him." I answer, Perhaps about as much as modern painters and artists know about Bacchus, whom they always represent as a gross, vulgar, fat person: all the ancient poets, however (and surely they ought to know best), depict him an exquisitely beautiful youth. A similar vulgar error exists with regard to Æsop, who in the Encyclopædia Britannica is pronounced a strikingly deformed personage. The exact opposite seems to have been the truth. Philostratus has left a description of a picture of Æsop, who was represented with a chorus of animals about him: he was painted smiling, and looking thoughtfully on the ground, but not a word is said of any deformity. Again, the Athenians erected a statue to his honour, "and," says Bentley, "a statue of him, if he were deformed, would only have been a monument of his ugliness: it would have been an indignity, rather than an honour to his memory, to have perpetuated his deformity."

And, lastly, he was sold into Samos by a slave-dealer, and it is a well-known fact that these people bought up the handsomest youths they could procure.

A. C. W.

Brompton.

Nelson's Coat at Trafalgar (Vol. iv. p. 114.).

—Besides the loss of bullion from one of the epaulettes of Lord Nelson's coat occasioned by the circumstance related by ÆGROTUS, there was a similar defacement caused by the fatal bullet itself, which might render the identification suggested by ÆGROTUS a little difficult. Sir W. Beatty says, in his Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson, p. 70.:

"The ball struck the fore part of his lordship's epaulette, and entered the left shoulder.... On removing the ball, a portion of the gold lace and pad of the epaulette, together with a small piece of his lordship's coat, was found firmly attached to it."

The ball, with the adhering gold lace, &c., was set in a crystal locket, and worn by Sir W. Beatty. It is now, I believe, in the possession of Prince Albert.

The intention of my note (Vol. iii., p. 517.) was to refute a common impression, probably derived from Harrison's work, that Lord Nelson had rashly adorned his admiral's uniform with extra insignia on the day of the battle, and thereby rendered himself a conspicuous object for the French riflemen.

A