the Cento. A Cento primary signifies a cloak made of patches. In poetry it denotes a work wholly composed of verses, or passages promiscuously taken from other authors (only disposed in a new form or order) so as to compose a new work and a new meaning. Ausonius has laid down the rules to be observed in composing Centos. The pieces may be taken either from the same poet, or from several; and the verses may be either taken entire or divided into two; one half to be connected with another half taken elsewhere; but two verses are never to be taken together. Agreeable to these rules he has made a pleasant nuptial Cento from Virgil.

The Empress Eudoxia wrote the life of Jesus Christ in centos taken from Homer; Proba Falconia from Virgil. Among these grave triflers Alexander Ross of Aberdeen published one with this title "Virgilius Evangelizans sive historia domini et Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi Virgilianus verbis et versibus descripta." A second edition was published in 1769.

A more difficult whim is that of "Reciprocal Verses," which give the same words whether read backwards or forwards. The following line is a curious specimen :

Signa te signa temere me tangis et angis."

The reader has only to take the pains of reading the line backwards, and he will find himself just where he was after all his fatigue.

Francis Colonna, an Italian Monk, is the author of a whimsical book entitled "The Dream of Poliphilus," in which he relates his amours with a lady of the name of Polia. It was considered improper to prefix his name to the work; but being desirous of marking it by some peculiarity, that he might claim it at any distant day, he contrived that the initial letters of every chapter should be formed of those of his name and of the subject he treats. This odd invention was not discovered till many years afterwards; when the wits employed themselves in decyphering it, unfortunately it became a source of literary altercation, being susceptible of various readings. The most correct appears thus: POLIAM FRATER FRANCISCUS COLUMNA PERAMAVIT. "Brother Francis Colonna passionately loved Polia." This gallant Monk, like another Petrarch, made the name of his mistress the subject of his amatorial meditations; and as the first called his Laura, his Laurel; this called his Polia, his Polita; "neat or polished."

A few years afterwards Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus employed a similar artifice in his ZoDIACUS VITE, "The Zodiac of Life." The initial letters of the first twenty nine verses of the first book of this poem forming his name, which curious particular is not noticed by Warton in his account of this work.-The performance is divided into twelve books, but

has no reference to astronomy, which we might naturally expect. He distinguished his twelve books by the twelve names of the celestial signs, and probably extended or confined them purposely to that number to humour his fancy. Warton however observes, "this strange pedantic title is not totally without a conceit, as the author was born at Stellada or Stellata, a province of Ferrara, and from whence he called himself Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus." The work itself is a curious satire on the Pope and the church of Rome.

Are we not to class among literary follies the strange researches which writers, even of the present day, have made in Antediluvian times? Forgeries of the grossest nature have been alluded to, or quoted as authorities. A book of Enoch once attracted considerable attention, and this forgery has been quoted; but the Sabeans pretend they possess a work written by Adam! and this work has been recently appealed to in favour of a visionary theory! Astle justly observes that "with respect to Writings attributed to the Antediluvians, it seems not only decent but rational to say that we know nothing concerning them." Without alluding to living writers, the late Dr. Parsons in his erudite "Remains of Japhet," tracing the origin of the alphabetical character, supposes that letters were known to Adam ! Some too have noticed astronomical libraries in the Ark of Noah! Such learning is a kind of feverish

distemper, and such historical memorials are formed of deliriums.

Hugh Broughton, a writer of controversy in the reign of James the First, shews us in a tedious discussion on scripture chronology, that Rahab was a harlot at ten years of age; and enters into many grave discussions concerning the colour of Aaron's Ephod, the language which Eve first spoke, and other classical erudition. This writer is ridiculed in Ben Jonson's Comedies:-he is not without rivals even in the present day!

Chevreau begins his History of the World in these words: "Several learned men have examined in what season God created the world, though there could hardly be any season then, since there was no sun, no moon, nor stars. But as the world must have been created in one of the four seasons, this question has exercised the talents of the most curious, and opinions are various. Some say it was in the month of Nisan, that is in the spring; others maintain that it was in the month of Tisri, which begins the civil year of the Jews, and that it was on the sixth day of this month, which answers to our September, that Adam and Eve were created, and that it was on a Friday, a little after four o'clock in the afternoon!" This is according to the Rabbinical notion of the eve of the sabbath.

The Irish antiquaries mention public libraries that were before the flood; and Paul Christian Ilsker, with profounder erudition, has given an exact

catalogue of Adam's. Messieurs O'Flaherty, O'Conner, and O'Halloran, have most gravely recorded as authentic narrations the wildest legendary tales; and more recently to make confusion doubly confounded, others have built up what they call theoretical histories on these wild nursery tales. By which species of black art they contrive to prove that an Irishman is an Indian, and a Peruvian may be a Welshman, from certain emigrations that have taken place many centuries before Christ, and some about two centuries after the flood! Dr. Keating, in his "History of Ireland," starts a favourite hero in the giant Partholanus, who was descended from Japhet, and landed on the coast of Munster 14th May, in the year of the world 1978. This giant succeeded in his enterprise, but a domestic misfortune attended him among his Irish friends :-his wife exposed him to their laugh by her loose behaviour, and provoked him to such a degree that he killed two favourite greyhounds; and this the learned historian assures us was the first instance of female infidelity ever known in Ireland!

The learned, not contented with Homer's poetical pre-eminence, make him the most authentic historian and most accurate geographer of antiquity, besides endowing him with all the arts and sciences to be found in our Encyclopædia. Even in surgery a treatise has been written to shew by the variety of the wounds of his heroes, that he was a most scientific anatomist; and a military scholar