istence) should be a strong incentive to caution.

These remarks have taken a more general form than it is usual to give in
your pages. As, however, it is probable that many of your readers may feel
an interest in a general statement of a very curious intellectual
phenomenon, I am not without a hope that, though so far removed from the
usual topics discussed in the work, they will not be altogether
unacceptable or useless.

PEN-AND-INK.

[Footnote 1: Although at one period of our life we took great pains to make
a collection of the _periodicals_ which, during the last century, were
devoted wholly or partially to mathematics, yet we could never even
approximate towards completeness. It was not, certainly, from niggardly
expenditure. Indeed, it is doubtful whether a complete set exists, or could
even be formed now.]

[Footnote 2: See _Philosophical Magazine_, Sept. 1850.]

* * * * *

MINOR NOTES.

_Sermon's Pills._--In Guizot's _Life of Monk, Duke of Albermarle_,
translated and edited by the present Lord Wharncliffe, it is stated (p.
313.) that when the Duke was suffering from the diseases which afterwards
proved fatal to him,

"One of his neighbours, at New Hall, formerly an officer in his army,
mentioned to him certain pills said to be sovereign against the dropsy,
which were sold at Bristol by one Sermon, who had also served under his
orders in Scotland as a private soldier. This advice and remedy from
ancient comrades, inspired the old general with more confidence than
the skill of the physicians. He sent for Sermon's pills, and found
himself so much recovered by them for a time, that he returned to
London at the close of the summer."

Having "found," in the newspapers of the day, the following paragraphs
illustrative of this passage in the great General's history, I think them
sufficiently interesting "to make a Note of."

"London, July 13. 1669.--His Grace the Lord General, after a long and
dangerous distemper, is (God {439} be praised) perfectly recovered and
restored to his former health, to the Great rejoycing of their
Majesties and the whole court, by the assistance of one William Sermon,
of Bristol, whose pills have had that excellent success as to restore
him perfectly to his sleep and appetite, and wholly abate all the
symptoms of his disease. Yesterday his Grace, as being perfectly cured,
dismissed his