NOTES.

Coulange la Vineuse, in Burgundy, was a place in which there was much wine and little water. In fact, the town was entirely destitute of that necessary element. Thrice had it fallen a prey to alarming conflagrations, and great efforts had been made, though with fruitless labour and expense, to supply its natural deficiency. At length the domain of the town having come into the possession of the chancellor d’Aguesseau, he invited M. Couplet, a distinguished mathematician and hydraulist, to consider the case, in September, 1705, the dry month of an unusually dry year. M. Couplet had studied the theory of springs as contained in the writings of Palissy, and to such good purpose did this shrewd pupil apply the knowledge he had derived from the pages of Master Bernard, that he was enabled to point out to his employer, not only on what spots to dig, but at what depth he would find water. In three months his prophecies having been fulfilled, a plenteous supply of water was brought into the town. The joy exceeded that of the most profitable vintage time; men, women, and children ran to drink; and the judge of the town, a blind man, travelled out, incredulous, to wave the waters through his hands, as a miser fingers gold. The grateful inhabitants testifiod their feelings by a device representing Moses bringing water from a rock encircled with vines, with the words, Utile dulci, and a laudatory inscription.

Mr. Morley, in his Life of Palissy (after quoting this anecdote from the quarto edition of his works), says, “Palissy has a statue somewhere I think. This, among other pictures, would look well upon its pedestal.”