I think the following _englyn_ or epigram on a silkworm, which is composed entirely of vowels, will satisfy your correspondent. I have seen it in some book, the name of which I forget. It {473} must be borne in mind that _w_ is a vowel in Welsh, and is sounded like _oo_ in _boot_. "O'i wiw [^w]y i weu ê â a'i weau O'i wyau e weua; E' weua ei [^w]e aia'. A'i weau yw ieuau iâ." "I perish by my art; dig my own grave; I spin my thread of life; my death I weave." THOMAS O'COFFEY. [Footnote 3: The _Dou_ to be pronounced as in _Douglass_.] * * * * * SONGS of DEGREES (ASCENTS). (Vol. ix., pp. 121. 376.) The analysis of the word [Hebrew: HAMA`ALWOT] (_the steps_), confining ourselves to sensible objects, shows, first, the preposition [Hebrew: `AL], _over_ (=_up_ + _on_); and, secondly, [Hebrew: MA`ALAH], the _chamber-over_. (Neh. ix. 4., xii. 37.; Jos. x. 10.; 1 Sam. ix. 11.; Am. ix. 6.; Ps. civ. 13.) The translators of the authorised version, in using the word "degrees," intended probably to convey the notion of _rank_; but the modern mixed-mathematical ideas lead us of this day rather to think of geographical, barometrical, &c. degrees. That _steps_ is the word most accordant with the ancient notions is evident from the concurrence of the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, as also from the Chaldee Targum, alluded to by J. R. G., which has the inscription [Chaldee: SHYR' D'T'MR `AL MASWQIYN DTCHWOMA'], "a song called 'over the _steps_ of the deep'" (Deut. viii. 7.; Ex. xv. 8.). The root of this moral is [Hebrew: `LCH], in the Hebrew and its cognates, and the primitive notion is _to ascend_; from which is formed in Arabic [(ARABIC)], _adscendit in tectum_; in Syriac [(SYRIAC)], _contignatio superior, coenaculum_ (Jud. iii. 23-25.; Luc. xxii. 12.); and the Chaldee [Chaldee: `ALIYT], _pars domus superior, cubiculum, sive coenaculum superius_, Græc. [Greek: huperôon] (Dan. vi. 11.). See Shaw's _Itinerary_, pp. 360-365. The [Hebrew: M] prefixed is the _participial_ form of the verb, equivalent to the termination _ing_ in English; and converts the verb also into a verbal noun, conveying the generalised idea of a class of _actions_; and thereby the steps, [Hebrew: HM`LWT], _the steppings upward_, literally, which means "the ascents," or "the ascendings." The ascent by fifteen steps of the rabbins is probably equally apocryphal with the quotations from St. Matthew and St. James (ix. p. 376.); for the same reason (Ex. xx. 26.) which forbad the ascending the altar by steps, would apply still more strongly to the supposed "fifteen steps leading from the Atrium Israelis to the court of the _women_."[4] Although the ground-plans of the temples are well known, their elevations are involved in doubt.