fugees_, 1846. It is to be regretted,
however, that the registers and acts of vestry are missing. The _seal_ of
the church has lately been discovered.

J. S. B.

_Lost Manuscripts_ (Vol. iii., pp. 161. 261.)--In pursuance of MR.
MACKENZIE'S suggestions respecting the search for lost manuscripts, permit
me to ask, if all hope must be considered as given up of decyphering any
more of those discovered at Herculaneum, or of resuming the excavations
there, that have been so long discontinued? Perhaps the improved chemical
processes of recent days might be found more successful in facilitating the
unrolling of the MSS., than the means resorted to so long ago by Sir H.
Davy. Can any of your correspondents state whether anything has been done
lately with the Herculaneum MSS.?

Eustace says that--

"As a very small part of Herculaneum has hitherto been explored, it is
highly probable that if a general excavation were made, ten times the
number of MSS. above mentioned (1800) might be discovered, and among
them, perhaps, or very probably, some of the first works of antiquity,
the loss of which has been so long lamented."--_Classical Tour_, vol.
i. 4to., p.585.

J. M.

Oxford.

_The Circulation of the Blood_ (Vol. iii., p.252.).--In a paraphrase on
Ecclesiastes xii. 1-6., entitled, _King Solomon's Portraiture of Old Age_,
by John Smith, M.D., London, 1676, 8vo., 1752, 12mo., the author attributes
the discovery of the circulation of the blood to King Solomon. Mede also
finds the same anticipation of science in "the pitcher broken at the
fountain." Who was the first to suggest the transfusion of blood?

T. J.

_Alliteration_ (Vol. iii., p. 165.)--Your correspondent H. A. B., in
quoting the seventh stanza from Phineas Fletcher's _Purple Island_,
observes, that the second line,

"A life that lives by love, and loves by light,"

is "noticeable" for its _alliteration_. But the best specimen that I have
met with in English--after having read much verse, and published a volume,
which my partial friends call poetry--will be found in Quarles' _Divine
Emblems_, book ii. emblem ii. Beyond all question, Quarles was a poet that
needed not "apt alliteration's artful aid" to add to the vigour of his
verse, or lend liquidity to his lines. Quarles is often queer, quaint, and
querulous, but never prolix, prosey, or puling.

"We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands
Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands: