a dark lantern. On the left side there are two men in the costume of James's time looking into the mirror--one evidently the king, the other probably Sir Kenelm Digby. On the right side, at the top, is the eye of Providence darting a ray on to the mirror; and below are some legs and hoofs, as if evil spirits were flying out of the picture. This plate, says a correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, "would seem to represent the method by which, under Providence (as is evidenced by the eye), the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was at that time seriously believed to have been effected. The tradition, moreover, must have been generally believed, or it never could have found its way into a prayer-book printed by the king's printer." It may be noted, however, that as the fame of Dee's magic mirror was at its zenith about the time of the Gunpowder Plot, this may have led to the mirror being adopted as a popular emblem of discovery, or "throwing light" upon a subject. Hence it has been reasonably suggested that the mirror in the print may simply be a piece of artistic design, rather than evidence of its actual employment in the discovery. In days gone by, too, it appears to have been customary for both sexes to wear small looking-glasses--a fantastic fashion much ridiculed by Ben Jonson and others of his time. Men even wore them in their hats--an allusion to which custom we find in Ben Jonson's _Cynthia's Revels_ (Act ii., sc. 1): "Where is your page? Call for your casting-bottle, and place your mirror in your hat as I told you." We may infer that this was the very height of affectation by the manner in which the remark is introduced. While men of fashion wore mirrors as brooches or ornaments in their hats, ladies carried them at their girdles or on their breasts. Thus Lovelace makes a lady say:-- "My lively shade thou ever shalt retaine In thy inclosed feather-framed glasse." It was a popular superstition in former years that fine glass, such as that of Venice, would break if poison were put into it. To this curious notion Massinger thus gracefully alludes:-- "Here crystal glasses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This pure metal So innocent is, and faithful to the mistress, Or master, that possesses it, that rather Than hold one drop that's venomous, of itself It flies in pieces, and deludes the traitor."