L. CLODIUS HERMIPPUS,

who by the breath of young girls lived 115 years and 5 days at which physicians were no little surprised. ------ Successive generations lead such a life.” ------ In later times amulets in civilised countries merged into the wearing of images of saints, or consecrated objects, and the use of scapularies by Roman Catholics at the present time. There is little doubt that the custom of wearing precious stones in rings, and the charms worn as pendants to watch chains, originated in the amulet and talisman. Who can say that the belief in such charms has even yet died out? How many people are there at the present day who do not carry about them some coin, token, or object, to which they would probably be ashamed to confess, they attach some mysterious virtue? The belief in keeping a crooked sixpence or a broken ring is evidence of that peculiar vein of superstition that runs through most of us, which, strange though it may seem, the advance of science and education has not altogether dispelled.