The title-page is adorned with emblematical figures. The work contains a portrait of the author, and fifty emblems executed with much spirit. Amongst others we have a Salamander in the fire, a green lion, a hermaphrodite, a dragon, &c. Every right page has a motto, an emblem, and an epigram under the emblem in Latin. The left page gives the same in German, with the Latin words set to music. After each emblem we have a "Discursus." The following remarks on the title occur in the preface: "Atalanta Poëtis celebrata est propter fugam, qua omnes procos in certamine antevertit, ideoque ipsis victis pro Virgine, præmio Victoriæ proposito, mors obtigit, donec ab Hippomene, Juvene audaciore et provido, superata et obtenta sit trium malorum aureorum per Vices inter currendum objectu, quæ dum illa tolleret, præventa est ab eo, metam jam attingente: Hæc Atalanta ut fugit, sic una vox musicalis semper fugit ante aliam et altera insequitur, ut Hippomenes: In tertia tamen stabiliuntur et firmantur, quæ simplex est et unius valoris, tanquam malo aureo: Hæc eadem virgo merè chymica est, nempe Mercurius philosophicus a sulfure aureo in fuga fixatus et retentus, quem si quis sistere noverit, sponsam, quam ambit, habebit, sin minus, perditionem suarum rerum est interitum," &c.--Page 9. [Footnote 4: The Jewish speculations on the subject of elemental spirits and angels (especially those that assumed corporeal forms, and united themselves with the daughters of men) were largely drawn on by the Rosicrucians. (See the famous _Liber Zohar_, Sulzbaci, 1684, fol.; and Philo, _Lib. de Gigantibus_. See also Hoornbeek, _Lib. pro Convert. Jud._, Lug. Bat., 1665, 4to.)] * * * * * SEARSON'S POEMS. (Vol. vii., p. 131.) John Searson was a merchant in Philadelphia in the year 1766. A few days before seeing the inquiry respecting him, I came across his advertisement in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_; but not having made a note of the date, I have since been unable to find it. His stock was of a very miscellaneous character, as "Bibles and warming pans," "spelling-books and swords," figured in it in juxtaposition. He taught school at one time in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. A copy of his poem on "Down Hill" is before me; and it is quite as curious a production as the volume of poems which he afterwards published. He describes himself in the title-page as "Late Master of the Free School in Colerain, and formerly of New York, Merchant." The volume was printed in 1794 by subscription at Colerain. The work is introduced by "A Poem, being a Cursory View of Belfast Town," thus commencing: