“Cs liberati Anne de Veer Abbatisse de Berkyng, per manus domini Roberti de Wakfeld clerici, super expensis domine Elizabethe uxoris Roberti de Brus, percipientis per ebdomadum xxs., et ibidem perhendinantis.”

   “Cs liberati Johanni de Stystede valletto Abbatisse
    de Berkyng, per manus proprias, super expensis
    Domine de Brus in Abbathia de Berkyng perhendinantis.”

It does not appear, in the above roll, how long the hapless queen remained in the abbey.

LAMBERT B. LARKING. 
Ryarsh Vicarage.  Dec. 14. 1849.

The Talisman of Charlemagne.—­I beg to refer your correspondent, on the subject of Charlemagne’s Talisman, to what professes to be a correct representation of this antique relic, in The Illustrated London News, of March 8th, 1845; but it is not there described as “a small nut, in a gold filigree envelopment,” and gives the idea of an ornament much too large for the finger or even wrist of any lady:  that paper says,—­

“This curious object of virtu is described in the Parisian journals as, ’la plus belle relique de l’Europe;’ and it has, certainly, excited considerable interest in the archaeological and religious circles of the continent.  The talisman is of fine gold, of round form, as our illustration shows, set with gems, and in the centre are two rough sapphires, and a portion of the Holy Cross; besides other relics brought from the Holy Land.”

The rest of the description much resembles your correspondent’s, and asserts the talisman to be at that time the property of Prince Louis Napoleon, then a prisoner in the chateau of Ham.

S.A.M.

Sayers the Caricaturist.—­In Wright’s England under the House of Hanover, vol. ii. p. 83 n., it is stated that James Sayer, the caricaturist, “died in the earlier part of the present century, no long time after his patron, Pitt.”  In Sepulchral Reminiscences of a Market Town, by Mr. Dawson Turner (Yarmouth, 8vo. 1848), p. 73 n., the caricaturist is called Sayers, and is said to have died on the 20th of April, 1823.

C.H.  COOPER. 
Cambridge, Dec. 29. 1849.

May-Day.—­To what old custom does the following passage allude?

“It is likewise on the first day of this month [May] that we see the ruddy milk-maid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and, like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her.” —­Spectator, No. 365.

MELANION.

[Our correspondent will find much curious illustration of this now obsolete custom in Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes p. 357. (ed.  Hone), where the preceding passage from the Spectator is quoted; and we are told “these decorations of silver cups, tankards, &c. were borrowed for the purpose, and hung round the milk pails (with the addition of flowers and ribands), which the maidens carried upon their heads when they went to the houses of their customers, and danced in order to obtain a small gratuity from each of them.”  In Tempest’s Cryes of London there is a print of a well-known merry milk-maid, Kate Smith, dancing with the milk pail decorations upon her head.  See also Hone’s Every Day Book, i. p. 576.]