[Respecting the antiquity of wafers, Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, vol. i. p. 146. (Bohn's edition), has the following notice: "M. Spiess has made an observation which may lead to farther researches, that the oldest seal with a red wafer he has ever yet found, is on a letter written by D. Krapf at Spires, in the year 1624, to the government of Bayreuth. M. Spiess has found also that some years after, Forstenhäusser, the Brandenburg factor at Nuremberg, sent such wafers to a bailiff at Osternohe. It appears, however, that wafers were not used during the whole of the seventeenth century in the chancery of Brandenburg, but only by private persons, and by these even seldom, because, as Speiss says, people were fonder of Spanish wax. The first wafers with which the chancery of Bayreuth began to make seals were, according to an expense account of the year 1705, sent from Nuremberg. The use of wax, however, was still continued, and among the Plassenburg archives there is a rescript of 1722, sealed with proper wax. The use of wax must have been continued longer in the Duchy of Weimar; for in the Electa Juris Publici there is an order of the year 1716, by which the introduction of wafers in law matters is forbidden, and the use of wax commanded. This order, however, was abolished by Duke Ernest Augustus in 1742, and wafers again introduced.">[
Asgill on Translation to Heaven.—The Irish House of Commons, in 1703, expelled a Mr. Asgill from his seat for his book asserting the possibility of translation to the other world without death. What is the title of his book? and where may I find a copy?
Abhba.
[This work, published anonymously, is entitled, "An Argument proving that, according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life without passing through Death, although the Humane Nature of Christ Himself could not be thus translated till He had passed through Death," A.D. 1700. No name of bookseller or printer. It may be seen at the British Museum or Bodleian. This work raised a considerable clamour, and Dr. Sacheverell mentioned it among other blasphemous writings which induced him to think the Church was in danger.]
Ancient Custom at Coleshill.—I have somewhere seen it stated, that there is an ancient custom at Coleshill, in Warwickshire, that if the young men of the town can catch a hare, and bring it to the parson of the parish before ten o'clock on Easter Monday, he is bound to give them a calf's head and a hundred eggs for their breakfast, and a groat in money. Can you inform me whether this be the fact? And if so, what is the origin of the custom?
Abhba.
[The custom is noticed in Blount's Ancient Tenures, by Beckwith, edit. 1684, p. 286. The origin of it seems to be unknown.]