"E bien assi como los marineros se guian en la noche escura por el aguja, que les es medianera entre la piedra e la estrella, e les muestra por de vayan, tambien en los malos tiempos, como en los buenos; otrosi los que han de consejar al Rey, se deven siempre guiar por la justicia; que es medianera entre Dios e el mundo, en todo tiempo, para dar guardalon a los buenos, e pena a los malos, a cada uno segund su merescimiento."--2 _Partida_, tit. ix. ley 28. This passage is especially worthy of attention, as having been written half a century before the supposed invention of the mariner's compass by Flavius Gioias at Amalfi; and, as Southey {88} remarks, "it must have been well known and in general use before it would thus be referred to as a familiar illustration." I do not think that any of your correspondents have quoted the halting lines with which Byron mars the pathos of the Rousseau-like letter of Donna Julia (_Don Juan_, canto I. stanza cxcvi.): "My heart is feminine, nor can forget-- To all, except one image, madly blind; So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul." WILLIAM BATES. Birmingham. _Gibbon's Library_ (Vol. vii., pp. 407. 455. 535.).--The following quotation from Cyrus Redding's "Recollections of the Author of Vathek" (_New Monthly Magazine_, vol. lxxi. p. 308.) may interest J. H. M. and your other correspondents under this head: "'I bought it (says Beckford) to have something to read when I passed through Lausanne. I have not been there since. I shut myself up for six weeks, from early in the morning until night, only now and then taking a ride. The people thought me mad. I read myself nearly blind.' "I inquired if the books were rare or curious. He replied in the negative. There were excellent editions of the principal historical writers, and an extensive collection of travels. The most valuable work was an edition of _Eustathius_; there was also a MS. or two. All the books were in excellent condition; in number, considerably above six thousand, near seven perhaps. He should have read himself mad if there had been novelty enough, and he had stayed much longer. "'I broke away, and dashed among the mountains. There is excellent reading there, too, equally to my taste. Did you ever travel alone among mountains?' "I replied that I had, and been fully sensible of their mighty impressions. 'Do you retain Gibbon's library?' "'It is now dispersed, I believe. I made it a present to my excellent physician, Dr. Schall or Scholl (I am not certain of the name). I never saw it after turning hermit there.'" WILLIAM BATES. Birmingham.