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OMNIANA.

been worn off, but this is not the case, for most of the tables have never been written on. Some of the edges being worn, shew that the middle of the leaf consists of paper; the composition is laid on with great nicety. A silver style was used, which is sheathed in one of the covers, and which produces an impression as distinct, and as easily obliterated as that of a black lead pencil. The tables are interleaved with common paper.


70. Lions of Romance.

Il est vray que le lyon est sire and roy de toutes les bestes du monde, et est de si franche nature et de si haulte que sil trouvoit fitz de roy de loyal pere et de loyalle mere ja nul mal ne luy feroit. (Lancelot du Lac. p. 2. ff 127.) The experiment was tried upon Lenvalles, son of king Eliezer, to prove his birth when he was three days old.

Beaumont and Fletcher have made a humorous use of this notion in the Mad