op Stillingfleet delivered a
speech on the "Case of Visitation of Colleges," printed in his
_Ecclesiastical Cases_, part ii. p. 411. Wood states that Dr. Bury was
soon after restored. For an account of this controversy, and the works
relating to it, see Gough's _British Topography_, vol. ii. p. 147., and
Wood's _Athenae_ (Bliss), vol. iv. p. 483.

Any farther communications on the above Queries shall be forwarded to
the correspondent.]

_Prester John._--I should be glad, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to be
favoured with some information relative to this mysterious personage.

STRATH CLYDE.

[The history of Prester John, or of the individuals bearing that
appellation, appears involved in considerable confusion and obscurity.
Most of our Encyclopaedias contain notices of this mysterious personage,
especially Rees's, and Collier's _Great Historical Dictionary_. "The
fame of _Prester_ or _Presbyter_ John," says Gibbon, "a khan, whose
power was vainly magnified by the Nestorian missionaries, and who is
said to have received at their hands the rite of baptism, and even of
ordination, has long amused the credulity of Europe. In its long
progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome, &c., the story of Prester John
evaporated into a monstrous fable, of which some features have been
borrowed from the Lama of Thibet (_Hist. Geneaologique des Tartares_,
part ii. p. 42.; _Hist. de Gengiscan_, p. 31. &c.), and were ignorantly
transferred by the Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia (Ludolph.
_Hist. AEthop. Comment._ l. ii. c. 1.). Yet is is probable that, in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed
in the horde of the Keraites."]

_Homer's Iliad in a Nut._--On the tomb of those celebrated gardeners,
Tradescant father and son, these lines occur in the course of the
inscription:

"Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut),
A World of Wonders in one closet shut."

Will you explain the comparison implied in the words "as Homer's Iliad in a
nut?"

DAVID.

[It refers to the account given by Pliny, vii. 21., that the _Iliad_
was copied in so small a hand, that the whole work could lie in a
walnut-shell: "In nuce inclusam Iliada Homeri carmen, in membrana
scriptum tradidit Cicero." Pliny's authority is Cicero _apvd Gellium_,
ix. 421. See M. Huet's account of a similar experiment in _Gentleman'