Steele resided at White House (Ty Gwyn, as it is called in Welsh), a clean farm-house half way between Caermarthen and Llangunnor church, which is situate on a hill commanding extensive views of one of the prettiest values in Wales.  A field near the house is pointed out as the site of Steele’s garden, in the bower of which he is said to have written his “Conscious Lovers.”  The Ivy Bush, formerly a private house, and said to be the house where Steele died, is now the principal inn in Caermarthen.

WM. SPURRELL.

Caermarthen.

Cure for Warts (Vol. i., p. 482.)—­ In Buckinghamshire I have heard of the charming away of warts by touching each wart with a separate green pea.  Each pea being wrapped in paper by itself, and buried, the wart will vanish as the pea decays.

J.W.H.

Etymology of “Parse" (Vol. ii., p. 118.).—­Surely to parse is to take by itself each pars, or part of speech.  The word does not seem to have been known in 1611 when Brinsley published his Posing of the Parts:  or, a most plain and easie Way of examining the Accidence and Grammar.  This work appears to have been very popular, as I have by me the twelfth edition, London, 1669.  In 1612, the same author issued his Ludus Literarius:  or the Grammar Schoole.  Both these works interest me in him.  Can any of your readers communicate any particulars of his history?

J.W.H.

* * * * *

MISCELLANEOUS.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

Admiration of the works of Holbein in Germany, as in this country, seems to increase with increasing years.  We have received from Messrs. Williams and Norgate a copy of a new edition of his Bible Cuts lately published at Leipsic, under the title Hans Holbein’s Altes Testament in funfzig Holzschnitten getreu nach den Originalen copirt.  Herausgegeben von Hugo Burkner, mit einer Einleitung von D.F.  Sotymann, to which we direct the attention of our readers, no less on account of the beauty and fidelity with which these admirable specimens of Holbein’s genius have been copied, than of the interesting account of them prefixed by their new editor.

We beg to call the attention of such of our antiquaries as are interested in the history of the Orkneys to a valuable contribution to our knowledge of them, lately published by our accomplished friend, Professor Munch, of the Christiana, under the title of Symbolae ad Historiam Antiquiorem Rerum Norwegicarum, which contains, I. A short Chronicle of Norway; II.  Genealogy of the Earls of Orkney; III.  Catalogue of the Kings of Norway—­from a MS., for the most part hitherto inedited, and which appears to have been written in Orkney about the middle of the fifteenth century.