Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 | Page 9

of the following Mormon works? The particulars
required are the size, place, date, and number of pages. The editions
enumerated below are the only ones to which I have had access.
1. The Book of Mormon:
First American edition, 12mo.: Palmyra, 1830, pp. 588., printed by E.
B. Grandin for the author.
First European edition, small 8vo.: Liverpool, 1841, title, one leaf, pp.
643., including index at the end.
Second European edition, 12mo.: Liverpool, 1849. Query number of
pages?
Third European edition, 12mo.: Liverpool, 1852, pp. xii. 563.
2. Book of Doctrine and Covenants:
First (?) American edition, 18mo.: Kirkland, 1835, pp. 250.
Third European edition, 12mo.: Liverpool, 1852, pp. xxiii, 336.
3. Hymn Book for the "Saints" in Europe:
Ninth edition, 16mo.: Liverpool, 1851, pp. vii. 379., containing 296
hymns.
As I am passing through the press two Lectures on the subject of
Mormonism, and am anxious that the literary history and bibliography
of this curious sect should be as complete as possible, I will venture to
ask the favour of an immediate reply to this Query: and since the
subject is hardly of general interest, as well as because the necessary
delay of printing any communication may hereby be avoided, may I
request that any reply be sent to me at the address given below. I shall
also be glad to learn where, and at what price, a copy of the first

American edition of the Book of Mormon can be procured.
W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.
14. Grove Road, North Brixton, Surrey.
* * * * *
MINOR QUERIES.
Dimidiation.--Is the practice of dimidiation approved of by modern
heralds, and are examples of it common?
W. FRASER.
Tor-Mohun.
Early Christian Mothers.--Can any of your correspondents inform me
whether the Christian mothers of the first four or five centuries were
much in the habit of using the rod in correcting their children; and
whether the influence acquired by the mother of St. Chrysostom, and
others of the same stamp, was not greatly owing to their having seldom
or never inflicted corporal punishment on them?
PATER.
The Lion at Northumberland House.--One often hears the anecdote of a
wag who, as alleged, stared at the lion on Northumberland House until
he had collected a crowd of imitators around him, when he cried out,
"By Heaven! it wags, it wags," and the rest agreed with him that the
lion did wag its tail. If this farce really took place, I should be glad to
know the date and details.
J. P.
Birmingham.
The Cross in Mexico and Alexandria.--In The Unseen World;
Communications with it, real and imaginary, &c., 1850, a work which

is attributed to an eminent divine and ecclesiastical historian of the
English Church, it is stated that--
"It was a tradition in Mexico, before the arrival of the Spaniards, that
when that form (the sign of the cross) should be victorious, the old
religion should disappear. The same sign is also said to have been {549}
discovered on the destruction of the temple of Serapis at Alexandria,
and the same tradition to have been attached to it."--P. 23.
The subject is very curious, and one in which I am much interested. I
am anxious to refer to the original authorities for the tradition in both
cases. It is known that the Mexicans worshipped the cross as the god of
rain. We have the following curious account thereof in The Pleasant
Historie of the Conquest of West India, now called Newe Spayne,
translated out of the Spanish tongue by T. N., anno 1578:
"At the foote of this temple was a plotte like a churchyard, well walled
and garnished with proper pinnacles; in the midst whereof stoode a
crosse of ten foote long, the which they adored for god of the rayne; for
at all times whe they wanted rayne, they would go thither on procession
deuoutely, and offered to the crosse quayles sacrificed, for to appease
the wrath that the god seemed to have agaynste them: and none was so
acceptable a sacrifice, as the bloud of that little birde. They used to
burne certaine sweete gume, to perfume that god withall, and to
besprinkle it with water; and this done, they belieued assuredly to haue
rayne."--P. 41.
EDWARD PEACOCK.
Bottesford Moors, Kirton Lindsey.
Passage in St. James.--I hope you will not consider the following
Query unsuited to your publication, and in that case I may confidently
anticipate the removal of my difficulty.
In reading yesterday Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, I came to
this passage (p. 308. Bohn's edition):

"St. James, in his epistle, notes the folly of some men, his
contemporaries, who were so impatient of the event of to-morrow, or
the accidents of next year, or the good or evils of old age, that they
would consult astrologers and