Latin Verses prefixed to Parish Registers.—On a fly-leaf in one of the registers of the parish of Hawsted, Suffolk, is the following note in the handwriting of the Rev. Sir John Cullum, the rector and historian of the parish:
"Many old register books begin with some Latin lines, expressive of their design. The two following, in that of St. Saviour's at Norwich, are as good as any I have met with:
'Janua, Baptismus; medio stat Tæda jugalis
Utroque es felix, mors pia si sequitur.'"
Can any of your correspondents contribute other examples?
Buriensis.
Napoleon's Bees (Vol. vii., p. 535.).—No one, I believe, having addressed you farther on the subject of the Napoleon Bees, the models of which are stated to have been found in the tomb of Childeric when opened in 1653, "of the purest gold, their wings being inlaid with a red stone, like a cornelian," I beg to mention that the small ornaments resembling bees found in the tomb of Childeric, were only what in French are called fleurons (supposed to have been attached to the harness of his war-horse). Handfuls of them were found when the tomb was opened at Tournay, and sent to Louis XIV. They were deposited on a green ground at Versailles.
Napoleon wishing to have some regal emblem more ancient than the fleur-de-lys, adopted the fleurons as bees, and the green ground as the original Merovingian colour.
This fact was related to me as unquestionable by Augustin Thierry, the celebrated historian, when I was last in Paris.
Wm. Ewart.
University Club.