_Lay Abbots._--In early times we frequently find secular persons denominated "field abbots" and "abbot counts," upon whom the sovereign had bestowed certain abbeys, for which they were obliged to render military service, as for common fiefs. In the time of Charles the Bald many of the nobility in France were abbots, having a dean to officiate for them. Thus, too, in Scotland, James Stuart, the natural son of James V., was, at the time of the Reformation, Prior of St. Andrew's, although a secular person. The Earl of Kilmorey, who is impropriator of the tithes of St. Mary, Newry, is a lay abbot, or representative of the preceding abbots of a Cistertian Abbey which formerly existed in that town. His abbatial functions, however, are confined to convening ecclesiastical courts, and granting probates of wills, and licenses for marriages, subject only to the metropolitan jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Armagh. A remnant of the secularisation of ecclesiastical dignities has already been noticed in our pages (Vol. ii., pp. 447. 500.), in the case of the late Duke of York, who was at the same time Commander-in-chief and Bishop of Osnaburg.] * * * * * Replies. SIR BALTHAZAR GERBIER. (Vol. ii., p. 375.) Your correspondent J. MT. has great reason to congratulate himself on the possession of the singularly curious tract which he describes, and which gives an autobiography of this extraordinary adventurer. I am not aware of any other copy in any public or private collection. I have a 4to. tract in nineteen pages, evidently printed abroad, the title of which is-- "Balthazar Gerbier, Knight, to All Men that love Truth." {305} This gives a very interesting life of him by himself, perfectly distinct from, and containing many particulars not given in the tract possessed by your correspondent, which also contains matter not in the above. I have likewise another tract, privately printed in Holland in English, French, and Dutch, in fifteen pages 12mo., the English title to which is-- "A true Manifest, By S^r B. Gerbier. Anno 1653."