SHOT STARS; tremella nostoche (Lin. Spec. Plant.; Dillenius, de Musica, tab. 10, fig. 14; Flor. Danica, tab. 885, fig. 1); tremella intestinalis vel mesenterica (Lin. Spec. Plant.; Dillen. de Mus. tab. 10, fig. 16; Flor. Danica, tab. 885, fig. 2). The substance in question is not unfrequent in England, and in other parts of Europe, after rains, both in spring and autumn. Very large spots of it are seen in gravelly soils, and particularly on the tops of hills and on open downs, and it is often found on gravel walks. It is met with in some of the old authors, under the name of nostoch, as in Paracelsus and others; and the alchemists fancied there was something wonderful in it, and that it would afford a menstruum for gold. Nostoch is said to be a word synonymous with Jaculum alieniust stellae, vel potius ejus repurgatione dejectum quid in terram, flos aeris, fragmentum nimbii; as this substance was believed to fall from the sky, along with the meteors which we often see, and call falling-stars. Hence the country people in Sweden have called it sky fall; and in England it is known by the name of witches' butter, in common with some of the gelatinous liver-worts.

Paracelsus, Helmont, and others, however, ranked it with the ternabin, or manna, and thought it dropped, as the lat- Nostradamus did, from heaven. It is described, and the chemical analysis of it given, by M. Geoffroy, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1708, and is there said to yield, besides an acid phlegm, a portion of concrete volatile salt and some fixed salt. The distilled water from it was believed by some to possess singular virtues in allaying pains of the joints; but there is certainly no ground for attributing to it any extraordinary qualities. Since the days of Paracelsus it has been considered as a vegetable production; but the botanists have had difficulty in assigning to it its place or genus in their several systems.

Naturalists had, however, for some years begun to doubt whether the substance in question was of a vegetable or animal nature, when at length the latter opinion received a strong corroboration from the observations of Mr. Platt of Oxford, in a letter printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1776.

"From a child," says he, "I remember seeing the meteors shooting in the air, which appearance, by my comrades, was called star-shooting, believing the stars no larger than their apparent magnitude. This jelly-like substance, mentioned in your magazine, was believed to be the dross of these meteors, and took the name of star-shot, which passed for certain with me till I had arrived at the age of twenty-four, when I was engaged in business that required my frequently passing over both meadows and pasture-grounds, where in spring and autumn I saw many portions of this supposed alga or nostoch, but never more than one or two contiguous, mostly near the water, when the meadows were or had been just before flooded. My conjectures were various, until I saw a crow pecking of something in a field, which I heard to cry; when turning my horse to the place, I found a frog of the common size, which the crow (of the carrion kind) would soon have killed and gorged, had I not disturbed her, and chased her away.

"About this time I found in a meadow the bowels of a frog indigested, and compact as the chitterlings of a calf or pig, but white as the paper I write upon, though not translucent. I took it up and placed it in a paper exposed to the air, leaving it in some grass where I found it, till my return that way in three days' time, when I saw it changed to that tremulous jelly-like substance, the alga or star-shot. I was much pleased with this discovery, and took it home in my pocket wrapped in a paper, where I showed it to a society of young persons of which I was a member, who agreed with my sentiments of its being the indigestible part of a frog disgorged by some bird of prey.

"To corroborate my sentiments of this alga being the bowels of a frog, I luckily saw some of it lying by the side of a brook, where I lighted and took it up, and to my great surprise found attached to the jelly the head, heart, liver, and one leg of the frog, which had been, I presume, disgorged by some carrion crow, who frequented the flooded grounds to pick up worms and other vermin. There was also some of it found on an apple-tree at Wyston Magna, near Leicester, where I then lived, which, no doubt, was disgorged by some owl."

Dr Darwin, in his Poem on the Loves of the Plants, is of the same opinion with Mr. Platt, that these gelatinous substances are of an animal nature; and that the different appearances they put on are owing to various circumstances, viz., the different birds who feed on frogs, the quantity they devour at a time, and the state of digestion before they are voided.

Nostradamus, Michael, an able physician and a celebrated astrologer, was descended of a noble Provençal family, and born on the 14th of December 1503, at St Remy, in the diocese of Avignon. By his grandfather he was initiated in the study of the mathematics, and he afterwards completed his courses of humanity and philosophy at the college of Avignon. Having repaired to Montpellier, he there applied himself to physic, till being forced away by the plague in 1525, he took his route towards Toulouse, and passed on till he reached Bordeaux. This course occupied him five years, during which he undertook the cure of all such patients as were willing to put themselves under his care. After this he returned to Montpellier, and, having been created doctor of his faculty in 1529, revisited the places where he had before practised physic. At Agen he contracted an acquaintance with Julius Cesar Scaliger, which induced him to make some stay in that town, where he married; but having buried his wife, and two children which she had brought him, he quitted Agen after a residence of about four years. On his return to Provence, he established himself first at Marseilles; but his friends having provided an advantageous match for him at Salon, he, in 1544, transported himself thither. In 1546, Aix being afflicted with the plague, he went thither at the solicitation of the inhabitants, and proved of great service; so that the town gave him a considerable pension for several years after the contagion ceased. Returning afterwards to Salon, he became a recluse, and employed his leisure in applying to his studies. He had for a long time occasionally followed the trade of a conjurer, and now he began to think himself inspired, nay, miraculously illuminated with a prospect into futurity. As fast as these illuminations had discovered to him any future event, he entered it in writing, in enigmatic prose sentences; but revising them afterwards, he thought the sentences would appear more respectable, and would savour more of a prophetic spirit, if they were expressed in verse. This opinion determined him to throw them all into quatrains, and he afterwards ranged them into Centuries. When this was done, he hesitated about making them public, till reflecting that the time of many events which he had foretold was very near at hand, he determined to print them. This he did with a dedication addressed to his son Caesar, an infant only some months old, in the form of a letter or preface, dated the 1st of March 1555. This edition, which includes seven Centuries, was printed by Rigault at Lyons. He prefixed his name in Latin, but gave to his son Caesar the name as it is pronounced, Nostradamus.

The public were divided in their sentiments respecting this work. Many looked upon the author as a simple visionary or a fool; whilst by others he was accused of the black art, or magic, and treated as an impious person, who held a commerce with the devil. But there were not wanting persons who believed him to be really and truly endowed with the supernatural gift of prophecy. A few remained in suspense, and refrained from giving any judgment at all respecting his pretensions. But Henry II. and Catherine of Medicis his mother, having resolved to see the prophet, he received orders to that effect, and immediately repaired to Paris. He was very graciously received at court, treated with extraordinary respect, and gratified with a present of two hundred crowns. He was afterwards sent to Blois to visit his majesty's children there, and report what he should be able to discover concerning their destinies. No doubt he exerted himself to the utmost on this occasion, but the precise nature of his prognostications is not known; it is certain, however, that he returned to Salon loaded with honours and presents. Animated with his success, he augmented his work from three hundred quatrains to a complete milliad, and published it in 1558, with a dedication to the king. But that prince having died the next year, of a wound which he received at a tournament, the book of the prophet was immediately consulted; and in the 35th quatrain of the first century this unfortunate event was found predicted in the following verse: Le lion jeune le vieux surmontera, En champ bellique par singulier duel, Dans cage d'or les yeux lui crevera, Deux classes une puis mourir, mort cruelle.

So remarkable a prediction added new wings to his fame, and he was shortly afterwards honoured with a visit from Emmanuel duke of Savoy, and the Princess Margaret of France his consort. From this time Nostradamus found himself overburdened with visitors, and his fame daily increased. Charles IX, on visiting Salon, was eager to see him. Nostradamus, who then waited as one of the retinue of the magistrates, being instantly presented to his majesty, complained of the little esteem his countrymen had for him; upon which the monarch publicly declared, that he should hold the enemies of Nostradamus as his own, and further desired to see his children. Nor did that prince's favour stop here. Not long afterwards, in passing through the city of Arles, he sent for Nostradamus, and presented him with a purse of two hundred crowns, together with a brevet, constituting him his physician in ordinary, with the same appointments as the rest. But the prophet enjoyed these honours only for the space of sixteen months, having died at Salon on the 2d of July 1566. Besides his Centuries, we have the following compositions of Nostradamus: A treatise de Fardement et de Sentiers, 1552; a Book of singular Receipts, pour Entretenir la Sante du Corps, 1556; a piece des Confitures, 1557; and a French Translation of the Latin of Galen's Paraphrase, exhorting Medeolos to apply himself to study, especially to that of physic, 1552. Some years before his death, he published a small instruction for husbandmen, showing the best seasons for their several labours, which he entitled The Almanac of Nostradamus. Lastly, after his death there came out the eleventh and twelfth Centuries of his Quatrains. It is to these productions that the following pungent distich was applied:

Nostra damus cum falsa damus, nam fallere nostrum est, Et cum falsa damus, nil nisi Nostra damus.

NOTE, signs used in writing, which have the force of many letters. This contrivance for expedition is of great antiquity. It was known to the Greeks, and from them passed to the Romans. By whom the invention was brought to Rome has not been precisely ascertained; but the most general opinion is, that in matters of importance Tully first made use of notes or short-hand writing when Cato delivered an oration in opposition to Julius Caesar relative to the conspiracy of Catiline. Cicero, who was at that time consul, placed notarii, or expert short-hand writers, in different parts of the senate-house, to take down the speech; and this was the first public occasion which we find recorded of employing short-hand writers amongst the Romans. It is unnecessary to observe, that the name of notary, still in use, was derived from this practice. There were three kinds of notes for short-hand writing used by the ancients, either for despatch or secrecy. The first and most ancient was that of hieroglyphics, which are rather images or representations of things than of words. The second species were called singulares, from their expressing words by single letters. Sertorius Ursatus has compiled a very copious collection of such abbreviations. The third kind were called note Tironiane, from Tiro the freedman of Cicero, who was particularly skilled in his art; and it is to him that we are indebted for the preservation of Cicero's letters, of which a great part still remain, one entire book having been addressed to Tiro himself.

It appears that notes were in frequent use amongst the Romans, and continued to be employed till the tenth and seventh centuries. We have indeed but few books remaining which are written in short-hand; but this is not surprising, when such was the unhappy situation of early times, that either superstition condemned them to the flames as the works of impious magicians, or they were left, through ignorance and stupidity, to be devoured by vermin. It is probable, however, that there are still extant writings of this sort, which might contribute to enrich the republic of letters.

There are several manuscripts and instruments written in these kinds of note in the royal library of Paris. In the year 1747, the learned and ingenious M. Charpentier engraved and published at Paris a capitulary, and fifty-four charters of Louis the Pious, emperor and king of France, written in the note Tironianum. To this work the learned editor has prefixed an Alphabetum Tironianum, together with a great number and variety of notes or marks for the different parts of speech, and rules for acquiring the art of writing in this kind of notes. Valerius Probus, in his book De Litteris Antiquis, explains many of the characters used by the short-hand writers; and there is a dictionary of them published by Gruterus.