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NOTES 'AND QUERIES, p* s. VIIL DEC. u, 1901.

chapel, refers to a "merchant de Lukes and to " merchantz de Lukes " (temp. Ed w. II and Richard II.), and adds that Dr. Sharp thinks that "Lukes" represents the town o Lucca in Italy. In ' The Lives of the Berk leys,' vol. i. p. 171, it appears that Thomas c Berkeley (Thomas the second) became suret to the king (Edward I.) for the payment b Thomas FitzMaurice, of Ireland, of seve hundred marks, which the king had assigne " to the marchants of Luk." G. E. WEARE. Weston-super-Mare.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS BIBLE. The fo lowing appeared in the Monthly Magazine o July, 1811 (p. 562):

"There was lately for sale in the sale-room o M. Sylvestre, at Paris, a quarto Latin bible, printec in that city in 1497. It belonged to Mary Queen o Scots, whose name is written in the title-page, wit her cypher M. S. and the following verses : Meieux ne me peult advenir, Qu'a mon dieu tousiours me tenir. On the same title-page is the date, 1571, with th signature of the famous Besme, who the year follow ing assassinated the Admiral Coligny. He has als written some lines with his own hand, in which h intreats God 'to grant him grace to derive th profit resulting from perusal of this holy book.' "

W. ROBERTS.

FREAKS OF NATURE. While inspecting lately the historic chapel of St. Vaclav (German Wenzel, anglicized Wenceslaus) in the cathedral of the Hradschin, Prague, I noticed on the wall what seemed to be a faded fresco of a man's head and what dis tantly resembled a flower. This, it was explained by the sacristan, was an accidenta effect of the process of nature upon an amethyst. There are, I understand, numerous instances of quaint designs in stone, wood, and shell due to no living artist, human or otherwise. FRANCIS P. MARCHANT

Brixton Hill.

LONDON STREET CRY: "ANY BAD SHIL- LINGS? 'In a MS. note-^ok (in my posses- sion) of a person who carried on the business ot a newsvendor at No. 63, South Molton btreet, London, from at least 1815 to 1818 and who was apparently living as late as April, 1851 but then, I think, residing else- where, is the following, which may interest the readers of ' N. & Q.' :

to be accounted for

ffcf - c accoune or

that the Traffic in bad Shillings, has so entirely Ceased within the last 20 or 30 Years \i e between 1788 (or 1798, and 1818]. The cry in Ln5on Sheets of any bad Shillings,' was as Common as that of any other, and the business was Conducted by Jews who gave 2d. a peice and if desired Cut or Clipp'd them with a Pair of Shears that they Carried for that purpose. Have the Laws against Coining been

more rigidly inforced and [is] the quantity of base Money in Circulation less now than formerly? The Traffic ceased long before the old silver Coinage was Called in.-1818.' J

This was certainly a remarkable and daring " street cry," the existence of which one can now hardly credit. W. I. E. V.

" NOTARIKON." In Hebrew hermeneutics ' Notarikon " is a well-known form of exegesis. The first letters of a sentence are taken to form some name. For instance, " Maccabee " is derived from the four words "Meecho moucho boeileem hadounoi." Now in a very well-informed article on this abstruse subject in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' by Prof. Salmond, that gentleman has been betrayed into an unaccountable error. He classes Yarchi and Kashi as two distinct exegetes, whereas they are one and the same in identity. Rashi is the Notarikon of Kabbi Shelomo Yarchi Yarchi being the hebraized form of Lunel. Yayrach = lune = moon. Lunel, as every schoolboy knows, is a French town. Here Rashi had a college over which he pre- sided, besides writing his huge commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud.

M. L. E. BRESLAR.

"ALMOST QUITE" : "VERBATIM AS POSSIBLE." We have recently been informed that the ing had "almost quite recovered " from an attack of rheumatism. On similar lines is the story of a man who asked an editor to n both cases the meaning is plain, but the ! orm of expression leaves something to be lesired. ARTHUR MAYALL.
 * eport his speech " as verbatim as possible."

'TABLETTES D'UN SPECTATEUR.' In 1879 here circulated in Paris a hand-written

iurnal named Tablettes d'un Spectateur, ufficiently curious as a vehicle for promul- gating calumny to deserve making a note of. ^he subscribers were privileged and the price ecessarily high. It contained all the scandal, nportant personages ; no name, however xalted, was exempt from its aspersions, and omehow it contrived to evade legal penalties. Tnscrupulous journalists did not hesitate at om such an objectionable source to damage le reputation of a political opponent. On
 * rue and false, current at the time, concerning
 * imes to make use of information derived

January, 1879, the gerant and redacteur en kef of La France Nouvelle appeared before the ivil Tribunal of the Seine for a defamatory rticle in which M. Challemel-Lacour was ccused of having been expelled from a ertain club for false play. The statement ad been made on the authority of the ablettes d'un Spectateur. M. Challemel-