St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge.
Weights for weighing Coins (Vol. ii., p. 326.).—If the question of your correspondent, who wishes to know at what period weights were introduced for weighing coins, is intended to have a general reference, he will find many passages alluding to the practice amongst the ancient Romans, who manufactured balances of various kinds for that purpose: one for gold (statera auraria, Varro Ap. Non., p. 455., ed. Mercer.; Cic. Or. ii. 38.); another for silver (Varro De Vit. P.R. lib. ii.); and another for small pieces of money (trutina momentana pro parva modicaque pecunia. Isidor. Orig., xvi. 25. 4.). The mint is represented on the reverse of numerous imperial coins and medals by three female figures, each of whom holds a pair of scales, one for each of the three metals; and in Rich's Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, under the word Libra, there is exhibited a balance of very peculiar construction, from an original in the cabinet of the Grand Duke at Florence, which has a scale at one end of the beam, and a fixed weight at the opposite extremity, "to test the just weight of a given quantity, and supposed to have been employed at the mint for estimating the proper weight of coinage."
Moneta.
Umbrellas (Vol. i., p. 414. etc.).—To the extensive exhibition of umbrellas formed through the exertions of the right worthy editor of the "Notes AND Queries" and his very numerous friends, I am happy to have it in my power to make an addition of considerable curiosity, it being of much earlier date than any specimen at present in the collection:—
"Of doues I haue a dainty paire
Which, when you please to take the aier,
About your head shall gently houer,
Your cleere browe from the sunne to couer,
And with their nimble wings shall fan you
That neither cold nor heate shall tan you,