on which is the figure of the
dead Saviour, usually called in Italy a _Pieta_. St. B. is said to have
been the founder of the charitable institutions still called in France
_Monts-de-Piete_, originally for the purpose of lending to the poor
small sums on trifling pledges--what we should now call a loan
society,--and which, in their commencement, were purely disinterested
and beneficial. In every city which he visited as a preacher, he
founded a Monte-di-Pieta; and before his death, these institutions had
spread all over Italy and through a great part of France."

It is added in a note:

"Although the figures holding the M. di P. are, in Italian prints and
pictures, styled 'San Bernardino da Siena,' there is reason to presume
that the honour is at least shared by another worthy of the same order,
'Il Beato Bernardino da Feltri,' a celebrated preacher at the end of
the fifteenth century. Mention is made of his preaching against the
Jews and usurers, on the miseries of the poor, and on the necessity of
having a _Monte-di-Pieta_ at Florence, in a sermon delivered in the
church of Santa Croce in the year 1488."

On p. 308. is a representation of the Monte-di-Pieta, borne in the saint's
hand. I need not specify the points on which the foregoing extract still
leaves information to be desired.

W. B. H.

Manchester.

_Poem upon the Grave._--A. D. would be obliged by being informed where to
find a poem upon The Grave. Two voices speak in it, and, it commences--

"How peaceful the grave; its quiet how deep!
Its zephyrs breathe calmly, and soft is its sleep,
And flowerets perfume it with ether."

The second voice replies--

"How lonesome the grave; how deserted and drear," &c. &c.

_Clocks: when self-striking Clocks first invented._--In Bolingbroke's
_Letters on the Study of History_ {373} (Letter IV.), I read the following
passage in relation to a certain person:

"His reason had not the merit of common mechanism. When you press a
watch or pull a clock, they answer your question with precision; for
they repeat exactly the hour of the day, and tell you neither more nor
less than you desire to know."

I believe this work was written about 1711. Can you tell me when the
self-striking clock was invented, and by whom?

JINGO.

_Clarkson's "Richmond."_--Can any of your readers inform me who is in
possession of the papers of the la