Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 | Page 7

to make it
imperative upon them to inquire what the real title was. Query, Is such
a practice common? Can any of your readers produce another instance?
M.

_Weights for Weighing Coins._--A correspondent wishes to know at
what period weights were introduced for weighing coins.
He has met with two notices on the subject in passages of Cottonian
manuscripts, and would be glad of farther information.
In a MS. Chronicle, Cotton. Otho B. xiv.--
"1418. Novæ bilances instituuntur ad ponderanda aurea Numismata."
In another Cottonian MS., Vitell. A. i., we read--
"1419. Here bigan gold balancis."
H.E.
_Shunamitis Poema._--Who was the author of a curious small 8vo.
volume of 179 pages of Latin and English poems, commencing with
"Shunamitis Poema Stephani Duck Latine redditum?"
The last verse of some commendatory verses prefixed point out the
author as the son of some well-known character:
"And sure that is the most distinguish'd fame, Which rises from your
own, not father's name. London, 21 April, 1738."
My copy has no title-page: a transcript of it would oblige.
E.D.
_Lachrymatories._--In many ancient places of sepulture we find long
narrow phials which are called lachrymatories, and are supposed to
have been receptacles for tears: can you inform me on what authority
this supposition rests?
J.H.C.
_Egg-cups used by the Romans._--That the Romans used egg-cups, and
of a shape very similar to our own, the ruins at Pompeii and other

places afford ocular demonstration. Can you tell me by what name they
called them?
J.H.C.
_Sir Oliver Chamberlaine._--In Miss Lefanu's _Memoirs of Mrs.
Frances Sheridan_, the celebrated authoress of _Sidney Biddulph_,
_Nourjahad_, and _The Discovery_, and mother of Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, it is stated that "her grandfather, Sir {327} Oliver
Chamberlaine," was an "English baronet." The absence of his name in
any of the Baronetages induces the supposition, however, that he had
received only the honour of knighthood; and the connexion of his son
with Dublin, that the statement of Whitelaw and Walsh, in their history
of that city, may be more correct,--viz. that "Sir Oliver Chamberlaine
was descended from a respectable English family that had been settled
in Dublin since the Reformation." I should be glad to be informed on
this point, and also respecting the paternity of this Sir Oliver, who is
not only distinguished as one of the progenitors of the Sheridans, but
also of Dr. William Chamberlaine, the learned author of the
_Abridgement of the Laws of Jamaica_, which he for some time
administered, as one of the judges in that island; and of his grandson,
the brave, but ill-fated, Colonel Chamberlaine, aide-de-camp to the
president Bolivar.
J.R.W.
October 10. 1850.
_Meleteticks._--In Boyle's Occasional Reflections (ed. 1669), he uses
the word meleteticks (pp. 8. 38.) to express the "way and kind of
meditation" he "would persuade." Was this then a new word coined by
him, and has it been used by any other writer?
P.H.F.
_Luther's Hymns._--"In the midst of life we are in death," &c., in the
Burial Service, is almost identical with one of Luther's hymns, the
words and music of which are frequently closely copied from older

sources. Whence?
F.Q.
_"Pair of Twises."_--What was the article, carried by gentlemen, and
called by Boyle (R.B.), in his Occasional Reflections (edit. 1669, p.
180.), "a pair of _twises_," out of which he drew a little penknife?
P.H.F.
_Countermarks on Roman Coin._--Several coins in my cabinet of
Tiberius, Trajan, &c. bear the stamp NCAPR; others have an open hand,
&c. I should be glad to know the reason of this practice, and what they
denote.
E.S.T.
* * * * *
REPLIES.
GAUDENTIO DI LUCCA.
(Vol. ii., p. 247. 298.)
The _Memoirs of Sig. Gaudentio di Lucca_ have very generally been
ascribed to Bishop Berkeley. In Moser's _Diary_, written at the close of
the last century (MS. penes me), the writer says,--
"I have been reading Berkeley's amusing account of _Sig. Gaudentio_.
What an excellent system of patriarchal government is there
developed!"
See the _Retrospective Review_, vol iv. p. 316., where the work is also
ascribed to the celebrated Bishop Berkeley.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
In the corrigenda and addenda to Kippis's _Biographia Britannica_,

prefixed to vol. iii. is the following note, under the head of _Berkeley_:
"On the same authority [viz., that of Dr. George Berkeley, the bishop's
son,] we are assured that his father did not write, and never read
through, the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca. Upon this head,
the editor of the Biographia must record himself as having exhibited an
instance of the folly of building facts upon the foundation of
conjectural reasonings. Having heard the book ascribed to Bishop
Berkeley, and seen it mentioned as his in catalogues of libraries, I read
over the work again under this impression, and fancied that I perceived
internal arguments of its having been written