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Marcus Antoninus wrote a book entitled [[Greek text=]] Txx xxx xxxx [[=Greek text]] — Of the things which concern himself. It would be a good title for a Diary.

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Lipsius, in his treatise " De Supplicio Crucis," says that the upright beam of the cross was a fixture at the place of execution, whither the criminal was made to bear only the transverse arm. Consequently the painters are in error who depict our Savior bearing the entire cross.

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The stream flowing through the middle of the valley of Jehoshaphat, is called, in the Gospel of St. John, "the brook of cedars." In the Septuagint the word is [[Greek text=]] xxxxx, [[=Greek text]] darkness, from the Hebrew Kiddar, black, and not [[Greek text=]] xxxx, [[=Greek text]] of cedars.

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Seneca says that Appion, a grammarian of the age of Caligula, maintained that Homer himself made the division of the Iliad and Odyssey into books, and evidences the first word of the Iliad, [[Greet text=]] Mxxx, [[=Greek text]] the [[Greek text=]] Mx [[=Greek text]] of which signifies 43, the number of books in both poems. Seneca however adds, "Talia sciat oportet qui inulta vult scire."

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The tale in Plato's "Convivium," that man at first was male and female, and that, though Jupiter cleft them asunder, there was a natural love towards one another, seems to be only a corruption of the account in Genesis of Eve's being made from Adam's rib.

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Corneille has these lines in one of his tragedies;

Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez volis en eau —

La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau

which may be thus translated,

Weep, weep, my eyes! it is no time to laugh

For half myself has buried the other half.

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Over the iron gate of a prison at Ferrara is this incription — "Ingresso alla prigione di Torquato Tasso."

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Hedelin, a Frenchman, in the beginning of the 18th century, denied that any such person as Homer ever existed, and supposed the Iliad to be made up ex tragediis, et variis canticis de trivio mendicatorum et circulatorum — a la maniere des chansons du Pontneuf.

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The Rabbi Manasseh published a book at Amsterdam entitled "The Hopes of Israel." It was founded upon the supposed number and power of the Jews in America. This supposition was derived from a fabulous account by Montesini of his having found a vast concourse of Jews among the Cordilleras.

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The word assassin is derived according to Hyle from Hassa, to kill. Some bring it from Hassan, the first chief of the association — some from the Jewish Essenes — Lemoine from a word meaning "herbage" — De Sacy and Hammer from "hashish" the opiate of hemp leaves, of which the assassins made a singular use.

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"Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur" was a law of the twelve tables.

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The origin of the phrase "corporal oath" is to be found in the ancient usage of touching, upon occasion of attestation, the corporale or cloth which covered the consecrated articles.

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Montgomery in his lectures on Literature (!) has the following — "Who does not turn with absolute contempt from the rings and gems, and filters, and caves and genii of Eastern Tales as from the trinkets of a toyshop, and the trumpery of a raree-show?" What man of genius but must answer "Not I."

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The Abbee de St. Pierre has fixed in his language two significant words, viz: bienfaisance, and the diminutive la gloriole.

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There is no particular air known throughout Switzerland by the name of the Ranz des Vaches. Every canton has its own song varying in words, notes and even language. Mr. Cooper, the novelist, is our authority.

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Incidis in Scyllam ciiplens vitare Charybdim

is neither in Virgil nor Ovid, as often supposed, but in the "Alexandrics" of Philip Gualtier a French poet of the thirteenth century.

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Under a portrait of Tiberio Fiurilli who invented the character of Scaramouch, are these verses,

Cet illustre Cooedien

De son art