The Gem.

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On a tombstone in the churchyard of Christchurch, Hants, is the following curious inscription, which I copied on the spot.  Perhaps some of your numerous readers can explain the same:—­

    WE WERE NOT SLAYNE BVT RAYSD
    RAYSD NOT TO LIFE
    BVT TO BE BVRIED TWICE
    BY MEN OF STRIFE

    WHAT REST COVLD’TH LIVING HAVE
    WHEN DEAD HAD NONE
    AGREE AMONGST YOV
    HERE WE TEN ARE ONE
    HEN:  ROGERS DIED APRILL 17, 1641. 
               I R.

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EPICURISM.

Thomas a Becket gave five pounds, equivalent to seventy-five pounds of the present money, for a dish of eels.

HALBERT H.

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A famous scholar of the last century, when a boy, was exceedingly fond of the Greek language, and after he had been a short time at school, had acquired so much of the sound of the language, that when at home at dinner one day his father said, “Shall you not be glad, Harry, when you can tell me the names of every dish on the table in Greek?” “Yes,” said he; “but I think I know what it must be.”  “Do you?” said the father; “what do you know about Greek?”—­“Nothing,” said the boy; “but I think I can guess from the sound of it what it would be.”  “Well, say then,” said the father.  He quickly replied, “Shouldromoton, alphagous, pasti-venizon.”  It appears the dinner consisted of a shoulder of mutton, half a goose, and venison pasty.

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SNUFF AND TOBACCO.

In the year 1797, was circulated the following proposals for publishing by subscription, a History of Snuff and Tobacco, in Two Volumes:—­

Vol. 1.—­To contain a description of the nose—­size of noses—­a digression on Roman noses—­whether long noses are symptomatic—­origin of tobacco—­tobacco first manufactured into snuff—­inquiry who took the first pinch—­essay on sneezing—­whether the ancients sneezed, and at what—­origin of pocket handkerchiefs—­discrimination between snuffing and taking snuff; the former only applied to candles—­parliamentary snuff-takers—­troubles in the time of Charles I. as connected with smoking.

Vol. 2.—­Snuff-takers in the parliamentary army—­wit at a pinch—­oval snuff-boxes first used by the roundheads—­manufacture of tobacco pipes—­dissertation on pipe-clay—­state of snuff during the commonwealth—­the union—­Scotch snuff first introduced—­found very pungent and penetrating—­accession of George II.—­snuff-boxes then made of gold and silver—­George III.—­Scotch snuff first introduced at court—­the queen, German snuffs in fashion—­female snuff-takers—­clean tuckers, & c. &c—­Index and List of Subscribers.

C.F.E.

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