I had no unwillingness to refer to it, in the unfinished portions of my labours, when I found any original matter. But Mr. Banks also says that I have quoted it unfairly, and he ventures to insinuate that I have done so collusively. If I understand him, the offence consists in my not having cited him whenever I noticed those Barons of whom Dugdale has not given any account; and which forms his second charge against me.

The only evidence of those individuals having been Barons, are the Writs of summons to Parliament, which Writs were printed by Dugdale in 1685, and, more accurately, by order of the House of Lords in 1820.

Having consulted those Writs as soon as I began my work, and long before the "Stemmata Anglicana" appeared, I derived from them, and not from Mr. Banks's book, the knowledge that the persons in question had been Barons of the realm. No doubt I was aware of the existence of Mr. Banks's "Dormant and Extinct Baronage," printed in 1807; but, though in compiling that work he might and ought to have referred to the writs printed by Dugdale, he is entirely silent respecting the Barons about whom he has now raised a discussion, but all of whom ought to have been as fully noticed in his "Dormant and Extinct Baronage" as in his " Stemmata Anglicana," or in his "Baronia Anglica Concentrata."

It appears, therefore, that from servilely following Dugdale's Baronage, Mr. Banks omitted to notice these Barons in his "Dormant and Extinct Baronage ;" and that from not servilely following Dugdale, and still less Mr. Banks, I did notice them in my first work on the Peerage, great part of which was, as I have already said, written long before the world ever heard of the "Stemmata Anglicana."

With regard to the third charge, that I did not mention Sir John de Sandale in the "Synopsis of the Peerage," it is sufficient to observe that he never was a Baron of the realm.

No fact in literary history is better known than that charges of plagiarism are usually brought by those who have themselves most frequently committed the offence. Contempt seems, however, to be the proper way in which to treat robbers and pillagers

of other men's books. I made no complaint even when the "Synopsis of the Peerage" was reprinted from beginning to end, by some provincial Pirate, without the slightest allusion to its author in any part of the book. In this I only imitated what I imagined would have been the conduct of the learned Dugdale, could he have seen the manner in which his great work has been treated in the "Dormant and Extinct Baronage," and in Mr. Banks's other works.

N. HARRIS NICOLAS.

MR. URBAN,

Maryville, Cork, May 6, 1843. A REMNANT of antiquity lately came into my possession of so curious and singular a kind, that I consider some account of it may be interesting to you and your learned readers. It is in the form of a large caterpillar, of silver, hollow, and having the back and sides coated with pieces of glass and composition of various colours, the prevailing colour being yellow, with a streak of dark blue pieces at each side, and one of red along the back; it is in length about four and a quarter inches, and about two in cireumference; it is, in fact, an exact imitation in size, colour, and appearance of the caterpillar called by the country people the conac or murrain ;* and, from the dread in which this reptile is universally held by them as being supposed injurious to cattle, it appears highly probable that this jewel was used as an amulet or charm against the reptile of which it is so close a resemblance. It was lately found near Timoleague in this county, where there is a Franciscan Abbey, built in the reign of Edward II. and a sacred well. At what period this amulet was fabricated it would be difficult to say, but it has the appearance of great antiquity, and is a proof, if any were needed, that the arts in Ireland had in ancient times attained a very consider. able degree of perfection.

A caterpillar of similar workmanship

This insect is, I am told, the larva of the emperor moth. There is also another caterpillar of exactly similar size and shape, but of a dirty blackish colour, and called by the country people the black murrain, four of which preserved in spirits have been for many years in my possession,

is in the collection of Redmond Anthony, esq. of Piltown, co. Kilkenny, differing, however, from mine in being of rather a smaller size and different colour, the prevailing colour of Mr. Anthony's being a dirty pale blue, whilst that of mine is of a dark amber.

*

These curious objects of antiquity have been the subject of much discussion, and, although the prevailing opinion is that they were used as amulets, this conjecture is not without its opponents; who, however, do not appear able to substitute any conjecture in its place. A brother antiquary here has, however, discovered evidence which will probably set this question at rest; he has ascertained on unquestionable authority that through the counties of Clare, Limerick, Kerry, and the west of the co. Cork, there is a tradition amongst the peasantry that these amulets or charms, as they are called by them, were fabricated in this form by or under the direction of the monks, and hired out by them to the country people for the purpose of curing the disease in cattle called the murrain. This evidence, whilst it goes to establish the fact of their being amulets, seems, however, to negative the idea of their being of very remote antiquity, although the custom alluded to may probably have continued for many centuries, nor in fact is it yet laid aside; the same absurd and superstitious ceremony being still in use in this county, although the charm is no longer in the form of the so much dreaded insect, but is merely a consecrated stone hung round the neck of the animal infected.

Yours, &c. JOHN LINDSAY.

ON our application to MR. ANTHONY of Piltown, mentioned in the preceding letter, he has obligingly communicated a representation of his Caterpillar Amulet, and the two are shown both of their real size in the accompanying Plate.

He has also sent us the figure of a bronze Brooch, of extraordinary size, found in the county of Roscommon, in 1842. The length of the pin is

Such a device appears suggested in the trespass offering made by the Philistines: " Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar your land." 1 Samuel, vi. 4, 5.

seven inches and a quarter, and it is reduced in the plate to less than one half its original size.

Likewise a Celt of large size, seven and a half inches in length, the surface of which is ornamented with engraved lines in the chevron and other patterns. It was found in the county Tipperary in 1843.

Both these curiosities are now preserved in the Piltown Museum, together with Mr. Anthony's Caterpillar.

MR. URBAN, Pulborough, Feb. 27.

THE panes of glass of which I have the pleasure of submitting fac-similes to your notice were, until lately, lying in the workshop of a glazier at Dorking, who, partly aware of their value, shewed them to me for my opinion. the manner in which they came into In answer to my inquiries respecting his hands, I learnt that an inhabitant of Dorking had, some years ago, bought up a quantity of old lattice from Wotton) which came originally windows at Westgate (about a mile from Wotton House, the seat of the Evelyns. These windows were given to the glazier to be repaired, and to old and discoloured; and the quarries replace with new glass that which was in question were of the number of the rejected ones. This information, combined with the evident antiquity of the glass, and the interesting and peculiar nature of the inscriptions, removed from my mind all doubts as to their ascription to the celebrated John Evelyn; and they are now in my pos

session.

As Evelyn was born in 1620, at the date at which "he scratched the brittle pane," he was in his 21st year. It is an incident deserving of attention, that the peculiar turn in the first stroke of the E in the autograph before us, which is intended to combine in a monograph the initials of his name, was adhered to up to his latest years, as may be perceived by the fac-simile of his autograph, copied from a plate illustrating his "Diary."

Some interesting reflections arise from the mottoes selected by the youthful Evelyn. The maxim "Omnia Explorate" admirably fits the year 1641, when he set out upon his travels; and the faithfulness with which he adhered to the "Meliora retinete" is

evidenced by his blameless and useful life. The lines

Tibi nos, tibi nostra supellex Ruraque servierint,

are plainly allusive to the extraordinary contributions made by the Royalists to the cause of their sovereign at the time when the glass was inscribed. The year 1641 witnessed the outbreak of those fatal dissensions which eventually led to the execution of the unfortunate Charles; and Evelyn, good royalist as he was, appears by his Diary to have been, if not daunted by the display of the popular force, at least induced to quit his native land to absent himself "from this ill face of things." It may excite some surprise that at a critical period, when not only the "supellex ruraque" of all royal. ists, but their bodily services were in such urgent request, he should have conceived the expediency of quitting the kingdom; but his peaceful and amiable character partly accounts for his choice. It should also be remembered, as another ground of vindication, that he had but very lately lost both his parents, and, being " of a raw, vaine, uncertaine, and very unwary inclination, thinking of nothing but the pursuit of vanity and the confused imaginations of young men," "studying a little, but dauncing and fooling more," it is not to be wondered at that he was not arrested by political motives from pursuing the usual terminating stage of a polite education. It appears also that he did not fail to contribute at least some of his property to the royal cause; for, on July 12th, 1643, he writes, "I sent my black manege horse and furniture to his Matie then at Oxford."

The character of the second pane is so obvious as to require less comment. The letters are not traced with such scrupulous neatness as in the other, and the second word of the second line is particularly indistinct. They run thus:

Thou that betrayst mee to this flame,
Thy power be to quench the same.

Though unauthenticated by a signature, the fact of this pane having been found in company with one of undoubted authenticity, the similarity

Diary, 1827, vol. i. p. 18.

+ Diary, vol. i. p. 53,

of character, and, above all, the artistical delineation of a burning heart, with an eye dropping compassionate tears on it, a fair specimen of the practical address of the author of "Chalcography, may outweigh doubts and suspicions; and, indeed, if not Evelyn's work, still there is such quaintness, originality, and sentiment in the "conceite" that an illustrious paternity would scarcely enhance its merits. Unfortunately for the lovers of romance, no trace of the tender passion under the influence of which this soft sentence was graved on the glass is perceptible in Evelyn's Diary. O nymph! unrelenting and cold as thou

art,

This heart is as proud as is thine own, was not his language. On the contrary, he informs us of his marriage in 1646-7 with Mary, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Brown, without the slightest preliminary hint of the state of his affections. Yet, from an entry in his Diary at Naples in 1644-5 (to which the courteous reader will permit me merely to refer him), it may with perfect fairness be inferred that the impenetrable ægis of a virtuous and faithful love defended him. The entries in Evelyn's Diary rarely bear upon matters of a private nature, and it would be injudicious to deduce from his silence on the subject of his youthful attachments that he was unsusceptible of the nobler impressions of love. Throughout the Diary it must be observed that a predominant feature of his character was a calm sedateness, with a reluctance to be involved in intrigues of any kind, whether political or private; the single exception of his affair with Colonel Morley, on the subject of the surrender of the Tower to Charles II. being honourable to his principles as a consistent royalist.

Yours, &c. FREDERIC A. MALLESON.

*We do not agree with our correspondent in regarding the writing on the two panes to be unquestionably from the same hand, though both are probably coeval.

tion is indisputably proved to be Evelyn's In the first quarry the inscripby his peculiar signature. The writing of the second quarry is less clear than that of the first; and the word read by our correspondent "power" is possibly mistaken. -Edit.