is invaluable for nurses, especially if they
be Irish ones:  "A charme for the chincough.
Take three sips of a chalice when the priest
has said masse, and swallow it down with
good devotion."  We should like to know
what is in the chalice?

Agues are cured in various ways. The
following is one of them:  " Take a crust of
bread, and write these three words following,
and, after they be writ, eate them;  'Calinda,
calindan, calindant.'"   Here the only difficulty
that strikes us is the old calligraphic one.
How do you write on bread?  With a toasting
fork.

We commend the following to practitioners
who are fond of experiments:  "To release a
woman in travell. Throwe over the top of
the house where a woman in travell lieth, a
stone, or any other thing, that hath killed
three living creatures—namely, a man, a wild-
boare, and a shee beare."  It would be so
easy to get a stone, or "any other thing," that
had performed these three successive feats.

It may be doubted whether any of the
swell-mob of the present day would manifest
the proper degree of emotion caused by the
application of the charmed herb, vervain.
"For theft, touch all the suspected with this
herb, and the theefe shall weepe."  Vervain was
a very cunning simple. In one particular it
superseded the art of old Izaak Walton.
"To catch fish. Carry vervaine about thee,
and say  'Venite,'  and all fishes shall come
about thee."  Perhaps, vervain might help
one to a glimpse of the real sea-serpent.

Vervain was also found a very useful ally
in affairs of love; but, on this subject, the
receipt books of the middle ages are eloquent.
Listen to the Ayscough MS., though it is
almost dangerous to society to communicate
such facts as the following.  However, we
will venture. "To see one's mistress. Take
foure haires of her hedd, and a thred
spunne upon a Friday, of a puer virgin,
and make a candle therewith of virgin wax,
four square, and wright with the bloud of
a cocke-sparrowe the name of the woman, and
light the candle, whereas it may not dropp
upon the earth. And she will come to the
candle."  Like a moth, no doubt. But there
were devices more potent still: "Take the
tonge of a sparrowe, and close it in virgin
wax under thy upward clothes the space of
four Fridays, and keepe it in thy mouth, sub
linguá tuâ; then kisse thy love, et ipsa te
amabit."   Or another, more practicable:
"Say unto a woman in her left eare, 'Veneto,
melchy, mobelchy—follow me.  Fiat.'"  We
should think so.  The next receipt is quaint
and pleasing:  "Take a redd frog and bury
him in a hillock. Then take the bones and
lay them on a tile stone redd hot, till he lift
over himself on the other side. So let it lie till
she is so likewise. Then make powder thereof,
and strew them on her clothes whom thou
lovest, and she shall love thee."  There is a
little confusion of genders in the preceding,
but we must not be too particular. Here is
another of the same class:  "Take a batt"
(no easy matter); "let him bloud with a
glass or flint, and with the bloud wright this
letter, D, and touch a man or woman, and
they will follow thee.  For triall touch a dogg
and he will follow thee."

We are travelling a little out of the record,
but the transition from the material to the
marvellous, is so unsuspiciously set forth in
the Ayscough MS. that we cannot resist a
few more illustrations of ancestral wisdom.
The following ought to be worth something,
especially if one could name the winner of the
Derby by means of it:

"A perfume made of hempseede, and of
the plea-wort and violette roots, and parslie
and smallage, maketh to see things to come,
and is available for prophesie."

A policeman or a thief, we beg pardon of
the former for the juxtaposition, would find
this useful:

"To goe invisible. Take a peece of deal
and wright thereon, 'Athatos, Stiros,Theon,
Pantocraton,' and put it under your left
foote."  In your boot, of course.

The usual receipt for seeing sights is to
put a shilling in your pocket, but the
Ayscough MS. recommends other methods.
"To see strange sights. Make an oyntment
of the galle of a bulle and the fat of a henne,
and anoynt your eyes."  Again:  "Take ants'
egges and the bloud of a whyte henne, and
anoynt your face therewith, and you shall
see wonders."  Another:  "Take the fatt of
a black catt and the fatt of a white henne,
and anoynt your eyes, and you shall see
marvellous things.  If you would have any
other to see them, let him set his foot upon
yours and he shall see them."

Cornelius Agrippa, a name held in great
veneration by our ancestors, has written a
great deal to the same purpose as the above.
One or two extracts from his  "Occult
Philosophy" will show what sort of wisdom
he encouraged:—

"The stringes of an instrument made of
the gutts of a wolfe, and being strained upon
a harp or lute, with the stringes made of a
sheep's gutts, will make no harmony."
Whoever sang to the instrument, we should think,
would naturally howl. Cornelius Agrippa
must have been fond of discord. Here is a
receipt for producing it;  we recommend it
to the Protectionists, at the approaching
general election  "A stone that is bit by a
mad dog, if it be put in drinke, hath power
to cause discord."

But the next is, perhaps, the pleasantest
receipt we ever met with: " A cup of liquor
being made with the brains of a bear, and
drunke out of the scull, shall make him that
drinks it be as fierce and as raging as a bear,
and thinke himself to be changed into a bear,
and judge all things to be bears; and so
continue in that madness, until the force of the
draught shall be dissolved, no other distemper