or shape as the body or trunks of the birds
that lay them, is a curious remark. Is it
true?

Among the Memorabilia in the Museum,
we hear of a prototype for our modern
revolvers, namely, "A seven-shot gun, or a gun
which carries powder and bullets for seven
charges and discharges, to be made presently
one after another. Under the breech of the
barrel is one box for the powder; a little
before the lock another for the bullets.
Behind the cock, a charger, which carries the
powder from the box to a funnel at the
further end of the lock, opens one valve to
let it into the barrel and the priming-pan;
another, to let the bullet in after it—raises
the cock, and lets down the steel—all at
once."

There is also the Spanish sembradore, for
ploughing, equal sowing, and harrowing, all
at once; and, hear it Deville! "Sir Robert
Moray's head in wax, taken off a plaster-mould
which was put upon it!"

Thus glimmering through the dream of
things that were, we may learn from the past
how to appreciate the present; and notwithstanding
all our science and progress, just
imagine it possible that two centuries hence,
Anno Domini two thousand and fifty-six,
our enlightened descendants may enjoy a
laugh at the absurdities of our grand philosophy!

A FORGOTTEN NOTABILITY.

DOES anybody now know anything of
Ramus—Pierre de la Ramée—philosopher
and martyr, anti-Aristotelian, inventor of the
Ramist Letters, of the earliest "croppies" on
record, and the great Q controversialist?
Does any one care about that peasant child,
born, in fifteen hundred and fifteen, of a
day-labourer, painfully toiling in the wilds of
Picardy, who grew up into such literary
celebrity? We do not believe there are a dozen
men in England who have Pierre de la
Ramée's history by heart; yet he was a
noisy notability in his time, and by his
tragical fate elevated to the dignity of a
martyr.

The son of a common labourer, but of
noble origin—for the De la Ramées were
Liègois aristocrats, obliged to fly for their
lives when Charles the Bold transformed
Liège into a mighty bonfire—young Pierre,
at the age of twelve, began his scholastic
life, as servant to the Sieur de la Brosse, a
rich student at the college of Navarre; but
before the first year of his servitude was
out he was inscribed on the books of the
Academy of Paris, as a scholar, servant, and
collegian, at the same time. His studies
were interrupted by an attack of ophthalmia,
lor which he went to the Abernethy of that
time, Jacques Dubois, a rude, brusque,
good-hearted man, who "thou'd" his patients and
abused them soundly for their folly in getting
ill. To Ramus he ordered a pint of generous
wine, abstinence from study and regular
sleep.

We are not told whether he followed the
first clauses of the ordounance or not; but he
drank the wine—sans sourciller; and the
consequence was, that his ophthalmia grew so
much worse that for a few days, instead of
simply having sore eyes, he was totally blind.
The Gallic Abernethy rated him again, and
shaved his head. Which operation,
apparently so simple, was one cause of De la
Ramée's future difficulties. For shaven heads
were not the fashion in Francis the First's
time, though they became so under Henry
the Second's; and poor Ramus got famously
hissed on one occasion; the audience (he
was acting as prompter and stage-manager,
ex-officio, as principal of the college of
Presle) taking him for an Italian; for the
Italians wore cropped heads at that time, and
were considered terribly bad company for
youth. But he indemnified himself for want
of due cervical covering by a magnificent
beard; which, being against sundry obsolete
statutes enjoining smooth chins on professors,
again raised enemies and razors. Twice,
Ramus was obliged to shave off his heretical
beard, or as his opponents said, "the peacock
was despoiled of his plumage," before he was
thought a fit personage to teach the humanities
to young men.

He had grand names accompanying him
now in his studies. Charles de Lorraine, the
future archbishop and cardinal--by turns
his friend, Mecænas, and enemy; Ronsart,
the proudest poet that ever lived; and
Charles de Bourbon; were his fellow students.
For teachers, the noted Jesuit, Jean Pena, at
the college of Sainte Barbe, and the amiable
Jean Hennuyer at the college of Navarre,
successively assisted in guiding his studies.
It was Jean Hennuyer who, then Bishop
of Lisieux, refused to allow the
massacre of the Huguenots in his diocese, though
the lieutenant-governor showed him the
royal order, peremptorily worded. The
governor demanded a written discharge of
his order, which the bishop, ready to
take on himself all the consequences of his
Christianity, gave him; and the Huguenots of
Lisieux were saved. Charles of Lorraine, on
the contrary, celebrated masses of thanksgiving
at Rome, when the news of the
massacre reached him.

When Ramus began to reflect and criticise,
he inscribed himself, Enemy of Aristotle. The
Stagyrite was then lord and master of the
schools, and the infallible guide of thought.
There was even a question of canonising
him; and Pierre Gallaud, with the Sorbonne
at his back, said gravely, that he should be
loved, cultivated, and adored, asking whether
he were a man or God? When Ramus then,
publicly declared himself for Plato against
Aristotle, a philosopher, not a sophist,—