a city below the
chariot occurs the very same form of coin, the three legs conjoined, with
the addition of three ears of corn.

This seems to me to be a curious coincidence.

MERVINIENSIS.

_Doctrine of the Resurrection._--Can any of your readers inform me of any
traces of the doctrine of the Resurrection to be found in authors anterior
to the Christian era? The following passage from Diogenes Laertius is
quoted in St. John's _Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece_, vol. i. p.
355.:

"[Greek: Kai anabiosesthai, kata tous Magous, phesi (theopompos), tous
anthropous, kai esesthai athanatous.]"

How far does the statement in this passage involve the idea of a _bodily_
resurrection? I fancy the doctrine is not countenanced by any of the
apparitions in the poetical Hades of Virgil, or of other poets.

ZETETICUS.

_National Debts._--Is there any published work descriptive of the origin of
the foundation of a "National Debt" in Florence so early as the year 1344,
when the state, owing a sum of money, created a "Mount or Bank," the shares
in which were transferable, like our stocks? It is not mentioned in Niccolo
Machiavelli's _History of Florence_; but I have a note of the fact, without
a reference to the authority. Is there any precedent prior to the
foundation of our National Debt?

F. E. M.

_Leicester's Commonwealth._--Are the real authors of _Leicester's
Commonwealth_, and the poetical tract generally found with it, _Leicester's
Ghost_, known? According to Dodd's _Church History_, the first is
_erroneously_ attributed to Robert Parsons the Jesuit.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

* * * * *

Replies.

HISTOIRE DES SEVARAMBES.

(Vol. iii., pp. 4. 72. 147.)

The History of the Sevarites, in the original English edition, consists of
two parts: the first published in 1675, in 114 pages, small 12mo., without
a preface; the second published in 1679, in 140 pages, with a preface of
six pages. The French version of this work is much altered and enlarged.
The title is changed into _Histoire des Sevarambes_, the "Sevarites" being
dropped. There is a preface of fifteen pages, containing a supposed letter
from Thomas Skinner, dated Bruges, Oct. 28, 1672. The work is divided into
five parts, three of which are in the first, and two in the second volume
of the Amsterdam edition of 1716. These five parts are together more than
twice as bulky as the two parts of the English work. There is