MONETA.

Umbrellas (Vol. i., p. 414. etc.).—­To the extensive exhibition of umbrellas formed through the exertions of the right worthy editor of the “NOTES AND QUERIES” and his very numerous friends, I am happy to have it in my power to make an addition of considerable curiosity, it being of much earlier date than any specimen at present in the collection:—­

    “Of doues I haue a dainty paire
     Which, when you please to take the aier,
     About your head shall gently houer,
     Your cleere browe from the sunne to couer,
     And with their nimble wings shall fan you
     That neither cold nor heate shall tan you,
     And, like vmbrellas, with their feathers
     Sheeld you in all sorts of weathers.”
                                Michael Drayton, 1630.

Had not the exhibition been limited to umbrellas used in England, I could have produced oriental specimens, very like those now in fashion here, of the latter part of the sixteenth century.

BOLTON CORNEY.

Croziers and Pastoral Staves (Vol. ii., p. 412.).—­The staff with the cross appears on the monument of Abp.  Warham, in Canterbury Cathedral; on the brass of Abp.  Waldeby (1397), in Westminster Abbey and on that of Abp.  Cranley (1417), in New College Chapel, Oxford.

The crook is bent outwards in the brasses to the following bishops:—­Bp.  Trellick (1360), Hereford Cathedral; Bp.  Stanley (1515), Manchester Cathedral; Bp.  Goodrich (1554), Ely Cathedral; and Bp.  Pursglove (1579), Tideswell Church, Derbyshire.

J.I.D.

* * * * *

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

We never longed so much for greater space for our Notes upon Books as we do at this season of gifts and good will, when the Christmas Books demand our notice.

Never did writer pen a sweeter tale than that which the author of Mary Barton has just produced under the title of The Moorland Cottage.  It is a purely English story, true to nature as a daguerreotype, without one touch of exaggeration, without the smallest striving after effect, yet so skilfully is it told, so effectually does it tell, so strongly do Maggie’s trials and single-mindedness excite our sympathies, that it were hard to decide whether our tears are disposed to flow the more readily at those trials, or at her quiet heroic perseverance in doing right by which they are eventually surmounted. The Moorland Cottage with its skilful and characteristic woodcut illustrations by Birket Foster, will be a favourite for many and many a Christmas yet to come.