Does not this nursery rhyme throw light upon the character of the royal visitor alluded to in the snail charm recorded by F. J. H. (p. 179.)?
Eboracomb.
DR. MAITLAND'S ILLUSTRATIONS AND ENQUIRIES RELATING TO MESMERISM.
I know more than one person who would second the request that I am about to make through "Notes and Queries" to Dr. Maitland, that he would publish the remaining parts of his Illustrations and Enquiries relating to Mesmerism: he would do so, I know, at once, if he thought that anybody would benefit by them; and I can bear witness to Part I. as having been already of some use. It is high time that Christians should be decided as to whether or no they may meddle with the fearful power whose existence is is impossible to ridicule any longer. Dr. Maitland has suggested the true course of thought upon the subject, and promised to lead us along it; but it is impossible at present to use anything that he has said, on account of its incompleteness. In tracing the subject through history, Dr. Maitland would no doubt mention the "Ομφαλόψυχοι, or Umbilicani," of the fourteenth century, whose practices make a page (609.) of Waddington's History of the Church read like a sketch of Middle-age Mesmerism, contemptuously given. Also, in Washington Irving's Life of Mahomet, a belief somewhat similar to theirs is stated to have been preached in the seventh century (Bohn's Reprint in Shilling Series, p. 191.) by a certain Moseïlma, a false prophet.
I may add that Miss Martineau's new book, Letters of the Development of Man's Nature, by Atkinson and Martineau, which cannot be called sceptical, for its unbelief is unhesitating, is the immediate cause of my writing to-day.
A. L. R.
Minor Notes.
Original Warrant.—The following warrant from the original in the Surrenden collection may interest some of your correspondents, as bearing upon more than one Query that has appeared in your columns:—