_Weights for weighing Coins_ (Vol. ii., p. 326.).--If the question of your correspondent, who wishes to know at what period weights were introduced {523} for weighing coins, is intended to have a general reference, he will find many passages alluding to the practice amongst the ancient Romans, who manufactured balances of various kinds for that purpose: one for gold (_statera auraria_, Varro _Ap. Non._, p. 455., ed. Mercer.; Cic. _Or._ ii. 38.); another for silver (Varro _De Vit. P.R._ lib. ii.); and another for small pieces of money (_trutina momentana pro parva modicaque pecunia._ Isidor. _Orig._, xvi. 25. 4.). The mint is represented on the reverse of numerous imperial coins and medals by three female figures, each of whom holds a pair of scales, one for each of the three metals; and in Rich's _Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary_, under the word LIBRA, there is exhibited a balance of very peculiar construction, from an original in the cabinet of the Grand Duke at Florence, which has a scale at one end of the beam, and a fixed weight at the opposite extremity, "to test the just weight of a given quantity, and supposed to have been employed at the mint for estimating the proper weight of coinage." MONETA. _Umbrellas_ (Vol. i., p. 414. etc.).--To the extensive exhibition of _umbrellas_ formed through the exertions of the right worthy editor of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" and his very numerous friends, I am happy to have it in my power to make an addition of considerable curiosity, it being of much earlier date than any specimen at present in the collection:-- "Of doues I haue a dainty paire Which, when you please to take the aier, About your head shall gently houer, Your cleere browe from the sunne to couer, And with their nimble wings shall fan you That neither cold nor heate shall tan you, And, like _vmbrellas_, with their feathers _Sheeld you in all sorts of weathers._" _Michael Drayton, 1630_. Had not the exhibition been limited to umbrellas used in England, I could have produced oriental specimens, very like those now in fashion here, of the latter part of the sixteenth century. BOLTON CORNEY. _Croziers and Pastoral Staves_ (Vol. ii., p. 412.).--The staff with the cross appears on the monument of Abp. Warham, in Canterbury Cathedral; on the brass of Abp. Waldeby (1397), in Westminster Abbey and on that of Abp. Cranley (1417), in New College Chapel, Oxford. The crook is bent _outwards_ in the brasses to the following bishops:--Bp. Trellick (1360), Hereford Cathedral; Bp. Stanley (1515), Manchester Cathedral; Bp. Goodrich (1554), Ely Cathedral; and Bp. Pursglove (1579), Tideswell Church, Derbyshire. J.I.D. * * * * * Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.