* * * * * But, Sir, I think I shall surprise some of your readers by pointing out another instance of the absence of tobacco or smoking. In the _Arabian Night's Entertainments_, which are said to be such faithful pictures of oriental manners, there is no mention of the pipe. Neither is coffee to be met with in those tales, so delightful to all ages. We with difficulty imagine an oriental without his _chibauk_; and yet it is certain they knew nothing of this luxury before the sixteenth century. At present, such is the almost imperious necessity felt by the Turk for smoking and coffee, that as soon as the gun announces the setting of the sun, during the fast of the Ramada, before he thinks of satisfying his craving stomach with any solid food, he takes his cup of coffee and lights his pipe.--As I think it dishonest to deck ourselves with knowledge that is not self-acquired, I confess to the having but just read this "note" in the last number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in a fine work upon America by the celebrated savant, M. Ampère. W. ROBSON. Stockwell. * * * * * Minor Notes. _Curious Epitaph._--In the _Diary of Thomas Moore_, Charles Lamb is said at a certain dinner party to have "quoted an epitaph by Clio Rickman, in which, after several lines in the usual jog-trot style of epitaph, he continued thus: 'He well perform'd the husband's, father's part, And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.'" There is an epitaph in the churchyard of Newhaven, Sussex, in which the last of these two lines occurs, but which does not answer in other respects to the character of the one quoted by Lamb. On the contrary, it is altogether eminently quaint, peculiar, and consistent. The stone is to the memory of Thomas Tipper, who departed this life May the 14th, 1785, aged fifty-four years; and the upper part is embellished with a representation, in bas-relief, of the drawbridge which crosses the river, whence it might be inferred that the comprehensive genius of Mr. Tipper included engineering and architecture. The epitaph runs thus: "Reader, with kind regard this grave survey, Nor heedless pass where Tipper's ashes lay. Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt and kind, And dared do what few dare do--speak his mind. Philosophy and History well he knew, Was versed in Physick and in Surgery too: The best old Stingo he both brew'd and sold, Nor did one knavish act to get his gold. He play'd through life a varied comic part, And knew immortal Hudibras by heart. Reader, in real truth this was the man: Be better, wiser, laugh more if you can." Is there any reason for supposing this epitaph to have been written by Clio Rickman; and is anything known of Mr. Tipper beyond the biography of his tombstone? G. J. DE WILDE. _Enigmatical Epitaph._--I offer for solution an enigma, copied from a tomb in the churchyard of Christchurch in Hampshire: