Smoking.—­A standing order of the House of Commons, in 1693, directs, “that no member of the house do presume to smoke tobacco in the gallery, or at the tables of the house sitting at committees.”  H.B.  ANDREWS.

A Turn-coat.—­De Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, was notorious for his shiftings in religion.  One of his friends ended a report of an interview with him as follows:—­“It is clear he is a wily-beguily, rightly bred in the nest of the Jesuits.”

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A Turtle Mayor.—­In the fourteenth century, one Roger Turtle was Mayor of Bristol no less than seven times, 1326 to 1341—­a circumstance which elicited the following jeu d’esprit:—­

  If old Roger Turtle was seven times mayor,
  An honour which fell to no other man’s share,
  His descendant, a Turtle, in this modern day,
  Bears, as mayor-elect, a perpetual sway.

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Auctions.—­In France, to this day, sales are announced with the drum.  In this country they were formerly accompanied by trumpet; for, in a will of 1388, we find “that the tenements so bequeathed shall be sold separately, by the sound of the trumpet, at the High Cross (Bristol), without fraud or collusion.”

Charters.—­In one of the most valuable, but least known collections in the British Museum, are about ten thousand charters, which were indexed by Ayscough.

Cowley, the poet, was the son of a grocer, who lived in Fleet-street, near the end of Chancery-lane.

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Epitaph, formerly in a Churchyard at Bristol.

    Ye witty mortals! as you’re passing by,
    Remark, that near this monument doth lie,
        Center’d in dust,
        Described thus: 
      Two Husbands, two Wives,
      Two Sisters, two Brothers,
      Two Fathers, a Son,
      Two Daughters, Two Mothers,
  A Grandfather, a Grandmother, a Granddaughter,
  An Uncle and an Aunt—­their Niece follow’d after. 
    This catalogue of persons mentioned here
    Was only five, and all from incest free.

G.K.

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Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) London; sold by G.G.  BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve, St. Augustin, Paris; CHARLES FUGEL, Francfort; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers.