_Serjeants' Rings_ (Vol. v., p. 59.).--T. P. asks if the custom of serjeants-at-law presenting rings on taking the coif prevailed so long back as 1670-80; and in C. W. Johnson's _Life of Sir Edward Coke_, 1845 (vol. i. p. 217.), he will find as follows: "On the rings given by Coke were inscribed, 'Lex est tutissima cassis'--the law is the safest helmet--a motto which has been thought very well to apply to his future fortunes. "This custom of giving rings is of very old standing. Chancellor Fortescue, who wrote about 1465, tells us that all Serjeants, at their appointment, 'shall give rings of gold to the value of forty pounds at the least; and your Chancellor well remembereth that at the time he received this state and degree, the rings which he then gave stood him in fifty pounds.' (_Laud. Leg._, c. 59.) Dugdale also gives an account of the Serjeants' rings in 1556. Some rings given in 1669 were objected to as wanting weight." I do not know where to refer T. P. for any record of the rings; but I think if the mottoes and names of donors could be obtained, a very amusing paper might be furnished; the variety would be great, some, as Coke's, alluding to the importance of law; some, as Serjeant Onslow's "Festina lente," punning on the name, &c. E. N. W. Southwark. [We should be obliged by our correspondents furnishing any such particulars of the mottoes and donors of Serjeants' rings as they may meet with in their reading.] "_Crowns have their Compass_" (Vol. iv., p. 428.).--The author of these lines was Robert Barker, as is ascertained from a MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, quoted in Halliwell's _Life of Shakspeare_, p. 207., where they are entitled, "Certayne verses wrighten by Mr. Robert Barker, his Majestis printer, under his Majestis picture." This is quite confirmatory of, and is confirmed by, MARGARET GATTY'S communication. R. [A. GRAYAN, who refers us to Dibdin's _Ames_, vol. ii. p. 1090., for the foregoing information, adds, that the last line in the MS. reads-- "That knowledge makes _the_ Kinge most like his Maker."] _Hell paved with the Skulls of Priests_ (Vol. iv., p. 484.).--The French priest referred to in this Query had most probably quoted, at second or third hand, and with rhetorical embellishment--certainly not from the original direct--an expression of St. Chrysostom, in his third homily on the Acts of the Apostles: "οὐκ οἶμαι εἶναι πολλοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἱερεῦσι τοὺς σωζομένους, ἀλλὰ πολλῷ πλείους τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους." "I know not if there be many in the priesthood who are saved, but I know that many more perish." Gibbon has also quoted this passage at second hand (v. 399. note z.), for he says: "Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii. in Act. Apostol. p. 29.) that the number of _bishops_ who might be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned."