there will stream out a number of little (almost
imperceptible) red veins. At the end of some of which, in time,
there will be gathered together a knot of matter, which by
little and little will take the form of a head and you will, ere
long, begin to discern eyes and a beak in it. All this while the
first red spot of blood grows bigger and solider, till at length
it becomes {85} a fleshy substance, and, by its figure, may easily
be discern'd to be the heart; which as yet hath no other inclosure
but the substance of the egg. But by little and little, the rest
of the body of an animal is framed out of those red veins which
stream out all about from the heart. And in process of time,
that body encloses the heart within it by the chest, which grows
over on both sides, and in the end meets and closes itself fast
together. After which this little creature soon fills the shell,
by converting into several parts of itself all the substance of
the egg; and then growing weary of so strait a habitation, it
breaks prison and comes out a perfectly formed chicken."--Sir
Kenelm Digby's _Treatise of Bodies_, Ch. xxiv. p. 274. ed. 1669.

Could Sir Kenelm return to the scenes of this upper world, and pay a
visit to Mr. Cantelo's machine, his shade might say with truthfulness,
what Horace Smith's mummy answered to his questioner,--

"--We men of yore
Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention."

The operations of the two machines appear to be precisely the same: the
only difference being the Sir Kenelm's was an experimental one, made for
the purpose of investigating the process of nature; while Cantelo's, in
accordance with "the spirit of the iron time," is a practical one, made
for the purposes of utility and profit. Sir Kenelm's Treatise appears to
have been first published in the year 1644.

HENRY KERSLEY.

Corpus Christi Hall, Maidstone.

* * * * *

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD "PARLIAMENT."

It has been observed by a learned annotator on the _Commentaries of
Blackstone_, that, "no inconsiderable pains have been bestowed in
analysing the word 'Parliament;'" and after adducing several amusing
instances of the attempts that have been made (and those too by men of
the most recondite learning) to arrive at its true radical properties,
he concludes his remarks by observing that

"'Parliament' imported originally nothing mor