We have still in the Town Hall here the chain in which
it is said Jefferies sat at the Bloody Assize.
A. D. M.
Dorcester, 3d Nov. 1849.
[We shall gladly receive the particulars which our
Correspondent proposed to collect and forward.]
* * * *
*
SERPENTS’ EGGS AND STRAW NECKLACES.
[Mr. Thoms’ Query in this case should have been
limited to the straw necklaces, as Mr. Nichols
has already explained the serpents’ eggs;
but our Correspondent’s letter is so satisfactory
on both points that we insert it entire.]
The passage from Erasmus, “brachium habet ova
serpentum,” is plainly to be rendered “and
with a string of serpents’ eggs on your arm.”
The meaning is equally apparent on recalling the manner
in which snakes’ eggs are found, viz.,
hanging together in a row. Erasmus intends Menedemus
to utter a joke at the rosary of beads hanging
over the pilgrim’s arm, which he professes to
mistake for serpents’ eggs.
I am not aware what particular propriety the “collar
or chaplet” (for it may mean either) of straw
may have, as worn by a pilgrim from Compostella; or
whether there may not lurk under this description,
as beneath {25} the other, a jocular sense. The
readiest way of determining this point would be to
consult some of the accounts of Compostella and of
its relics, which are to be found in a class of books
formerly abundant in the north-western towns of Spain.
* * * *
*
MADOC—HIS EXPEDITION TO AMERICA.
“A Student” may consult the Proceedings
of the Royal Society of
Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen, Mr. Geogehan’s
Ireland,
O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, Magnusen and
Rafn On the Historical Monuments of
Greenland and America, and some of the Sagas.
SCOTUS.
Brechin, Nov. 5. 1849.
* * * *
*
NOTES ON COFFEE.
The earliest account we have of coffee is said to
be taken from an
Arabian MS. in the Bibliotheque du Roi in Paris.
Schehabeddin Ben, an Arabian author of the ninth century
of the Hegira, or fifteenth of the Christians, attributes
to Gemaleddin, Mufti of Aden, a city of Arabia Felix,
who was nearly his contemporary, the first introduction
into that country, of drinking coffee. He tells
us, that Gemaleddin, having occasion to travel into
Persia, during his abode there saw some of his countrymen
drinking coffee, which at that time he did not much
attend to; but, on his return to Aden, finding himself
indisposed, and remembering that he had seen his countrymen
drinking coffee in Persia, in hopes of receiving some
benefit from it, he determined to try it on himself;
and, after making the experiment, not only recovered
his health, but perceived other useful qualities in
