No. 1566.  The author of the epigram is doubtful, but the diction appears rather too quaint for a good ancient writer.  Maffei ascribes it to Brenzoni, who lived in the sixteenth century; others give it to Ant.  Tebaldeo, of Ferrara.’  Our readers will perceive that the translator has taken some liberties with his text.  ‘Lumine formae deceptus,’ for instance, is not translated by ‘she smiled.’  But it may be questioned if the suggestion is not even more delicate and graceful in the translator’s version than in the original.”—­The Athenaeum.

* * * * *

THE MIRROR.

  (From the Latin of Owen.)

  Bella, your image just returns your smile—­
    You weep, and tears its lovely cheek bedew—­
  You sleep, and its bright eyes are closed the while—­
    You rise, the faithful mimic rises too.—­
  Bella, what art such likeness could increase
  If glass could talk, or woman hold her peace?

Rufus.

       * * * * * {309}

Journeyman.—­Three or four years since, a paragraph went the round of the press, deriving the English word “journeyman” from the custom of travelling among work-men in Germany.  This derivation is very doubtful.  Is it not a relic of Norman rule, from the French journee, signifying a day-man?  In support of this it may be observed, that the German name for the word in question if Tageloehner, or day-worker.  It is also well known, that down to a comparatively recent period, artisans and free labourers were paid daily.

Gomer.

Balloons.—­In one of your early numbers you mention the History of Ringwood, &c.  Many years since I sent to a periodical (I cannot recollect which) a circumstance connected with that town, which I never heard or read of anywhere, and which, as it is rather of importance, I forward to you in hopes that some of your correspondents may be able to throw some light upon it.  When my father was in the Artillery Ground at the ascension of Lunardi’s balloon, he remarked to several persons present, “This is no novelty to me; I remember well, when I was at school in Ringwood [about the year 1757], an apothecary in that town that used to let off balloons (he had no other name, I suppose, to give them) on a smaller scale, but exactly corresponding with what he then saw, many a time.”

I had several letters addressed to me, requesting further explanation, which, as my father was dead, I was unable to give.  It is highly improbable that any persons now living may have it in their power to corroborate the fact, but some of their relations or descendants may.  I suppose they must have been fire-balloons, and these of the rudest construction; and my father, being a boy at the time, would have given perhaps little valuable information, except as to the name of the apothecary, which, however, I never heard him mention.