A similar entry occurs for the three following years.

1648.  Upon the third of June the following Infants all born in the parish of Brenchley were baptized in this parish Church, by an order granted from Sir John Sedley, Knight and Baronett, Sir John Rayney, and Sir Isaac Sedley, Knights:—­

“Whereas complaints have often been made unto us by many of the principal inhabitants of the Parish of Brenchley, that they having desired Mr. Gilbert, minister of the said Parish, to baptize their children, and according to the Directorie offered to present them before the Congregation, he hath neglected or refused so to do; whereby divers infants remain unbaptized, some of them above a year old, expressly contrary to the said Directorie.

“We do therefore order that the parents of such children do bring them unto the Parish Church of East Peckham, where we desire that Mr. Topping, minister of the said Parish, would baptize them according to the sayd Directorie, they acquainting him with the day they intend to bring them beforehand.

    “Dated ye 25th of May 1648.

    “JOHN SEDLEY.

    “JOHN RAYNEY.

    “ISAAC SEDLEY.”

The last extract may illustrate the progress of Anabaptism, under the Parliamentary rule, and serves by way of curious sequel to the preceding excerpta.

In a window of the same church I observed this inscription:—­“Here stoode the wicked fable of Mychael waying of [souls].  By the law of Qvene Elizabeth according to God[s] Word is taken away.”

C.F.S.

* * * * *

PAWNBROKERS’ THREE BALLS.

Mr. Editor,—­The Edinburgh Reviewer, cited by your correspondent Mr. W.J.  Thoms, seems to have sought rather too far for the origin of a pawnbroker’s golden balls.

He is right enough in referring their origin to the Italian bankers, generally called Lombards; but he has overlooked the fact that the greatest of those traders in money were the celebrated and eventually princely house of the Medici of Florence.  They bore pills on their shield, (and those pills, as usual then, were gilded,) in allusion to the professional origin from whence they had derived the name of Medici; and their agents in England and other countries put that armorial bearing over their doors as their sign, and the reputation of that house induced others to put up the same sign.

H.W.

* * * * *

THE LIONS IN THE TOWER.

Mr. Editor,—­Some one of your readers may be interested in knowing that there was a royal menagerie in the Tower of London in the reign of Edward III.  In the Issue Roll of the forty-fourth year of his reign, 1370, there are five entries of payments made to “William de Garderobe, keeper of the king’s lions and leopards” there, at the rate of 6d. a day for his wages, and 6d. a day for each beast.—­pp. 25. 216. 298. 388. 429.