e imperial laws of the
Roman Emperors, an argument which may be urged with as great reason,
and with as great authority, for the reduction of the state and the
clergy of England to the polity and laws in the time of those Emperors;
as also to make the laws and customs of Rome and Constantinople to be
binding and obligatory in the cities of London and York.'

"The issue of which complaint was, that the author, for these his
outlandish politics, was taken into custody, and his book condemned to
the flames: nor could the dedication of it to his then grace of
Canterbury save it."--Atterbury's _Rights, Powers, and Privileges of
Convocation_, p. 7. of Preface.

WM. FRASER, B.C.L.

Tor-Mohun.

I possess a copy of _The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament
in England stated_, by William Molyneux of Dublin, Esq., which appears to
have been literally "plucked as brand from the burning," as a considerable
portion of it is consumed by fire. I have cut the following from a sale
catalogue just sent to me from Dublin:

"Smith's (Matthew) _Memoirs of Secret Service_, Lond. 1696. Written by
Charles, Earl of Peterborough, and is very scarce, being burnt by the
hangman. MS. note."

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny.

A decree of the University of Oxford, made July 21, 1683, condemning George
Buchanan's treatise _De jure regni apud Scotos_, and certain other books,
the names of which I do not know, was on March 25, 1710, ordered by the
House of Lords to be burned by the hangman. This was shortly after the
trial of Dr. Sacheverel.

W. P. STORER.

Olney, Bucks.

* * * * *

DIFFERENT PRODUCTIONS OF DIFFERENT CARCASES.

(Vol. vi., p. 263.)

Up to a very recent period, it was held, even by philosophers, that each of
the four elements, as well as every _living_ plant and animal, both {228}
brute and human, generated insects; but of all sources of this equivocal
generation, none was considered more potent than the putrefaction or
corruption of animal matter: as Du Bartas says:

"God, not contented to each kind to give,
And to infuse the virtue generative,
By His wise power, made many creatures breed,
Of _lifeless bodies_ without Venus' deed."
_Sixth Day._

Pliny, after giving Virgil's receipt for making bees, gives similar
instances:

"Like as dead horses will breed waspes and hornets; and asses carri