Should these chemicals _destroy_ the power of the _hyposulphite of soda_, I imagine the fading of _positives_ will no longer be a matter of uneasiness; and I am sure all amateurs will be greatly indebted to him. W. ADRIAN DELFERIER. 40. Sloane Square. * * * * * Replies to Minor Queries. _A Race for Canterbury_ (Vol. vii., p. 158.).--In a copy of the tract before me (4to., 1747) is a plate prefixed to the title, containing a view of Lambeth Palace with four bishops, each in a wherry, striving hard to reach the coveted God: Sherlock, Herring, Mawson, and Gibson, designated in the poem as _Codex_. The contention for the see of Canterbury, on the death of Archbishop Potter, was the subject of several squibs and satirical prints. I have two other plates, each representing three bishops in wherries; one with three stanzas under it, commencing: "Pope Gregory's table was spread with a net, Till he the fish into his power could get; Pope E--nd to L--eth rows in a wherry, For the A--B--p's P--ce of C----." In which Gibson and the two Sherlocks are alluded to. The other, a broadside, headed by a woodcut with _three_ wherries, entitled "First Oars to L--m--th, or who strives for Preferment?" with fourteen stanzas below the cut; the first runs thus: "At L--m--th dwells, as fame reports, A P--i--st of spotless fame; Some annual thousands swell his worth, And spread abroad his name." In the twelfth, the initials H--d--y appear: "H--d--y, with headstrong zeal inspired, Vows he'll complete the work, Whilst G--b--n tugs and boils in vain, T' o'ertake the furious Y--r--k." Which would lead one to infer that Hoadley was a competitor with Herring and Gibson. J. F. Kennington. {220} "_The Birch: a Poem_" (Vol. vii., p. 158.).--The poem entitled "The Birch," which you have printed at length in a recent Number, has long been familiar to me, though I believe it has never before been printed; and was written by the late _Rev. Thomas Wilson, B.D., head master of the Free Grammar School of Clitheroe, Lancashire_. He was author of _An Archæological Dictionary, or Classical Antiquities of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans_, dedicated to Dr. Johnson; which was highly esteemed, and passed through two editions: the first in 1782, the second, "with considerable additions," in 1793.