entitled _Contes populaires, Prejuges,
Patois, Proverbes de l'Arrondissement de Bayeux, recueillis et publies_,
par F. Pluquet, the frontispiece of which consists of a sufficiently
graphic representation of the worthy canon's feat. Pluquet concludes his
narrative by stating that--

"Etienne Tabourot dans ses _Bigarrures_, publiees sous le nom du
_Seigneur des Accords_, rapporte que c'est a Saint Antide que le
diable, qui le portait a Rome sur son dos, adresse le distique latin
dont il est question ci-dessus."

It should seem that this trick of _carrying people to Rome_ was attributed
to the devil, by those conversant with his habits, in other centuries
besides the nineteenth.

I have not here the means of looking at the work to which Pluquet refers;
but if any of your correspondents, who live in more bookish lands than
this, will do so, they may perchance obtain some clue to the original
authorship of the lines; for in Sidonius Apollinaris I cannot find them.
The only edition of his works to which I have the means of referring is the
quarto of Adrien Perrier, Paris, 1609. Among the verses contained in that
volume, I think I can assert that the lines in question are not. We all
know that the worthy author of the _Curiosities of Literature_ cannot be
much depended upon for accuracy.

Once again, then, Who was the author of this specimen, perhaps the most
perfect extant, of palindromic absurdity?

T. A. T.

Florence.

* * * * *

CHILDREN CRYING AT THEIR BIRTH.

"When I was born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth,
which is of like nature, _and the first voice which I uttered was
crying, as all others do_."--_Wisd._ vii. 3.

"Tum porro Puer, ut saevis projectus ab undis
Navita, _nudus, humi jacet_, Infans, indigus omni
Vitali auxilio; cum primum in luminis oras
Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit:
_Vagituque locum lugubri complet_, ut aequum est,
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum."
_Lucret. De Rer. Nat._, v. 223.

For the benefit of the lady-readers of "N. & Q." I subjoin a translation of
these beautiful lines of Lucretius:

"The infant, as soon as Nature with great pangs of travail hath sent it
forth from the womb of its mother into the regions of light, lies, like
a sailor cast out from the waves, _naked upon the earth_ in utter want
and helplessness; _and fills every place a