Theophilus, better known by his assumed name of Merlin Cocajo, an eccentric genius and burlesque poet, was descended of a noble family of Mantua, and born at a place called Cipada in the year 1491. From his infancy he showed great vivacity of mind, and a singular facility of turning everything that occurred into verse. He completed his studies at Bologna, and at the age of sixteen entered the order of Benedictines of the congregation of Monte Cassino, near Brescia. He then assumed the name of Theophilus instead of Jerome, which was his baptismal name, and eighteen months afterwards he made profession as Benedictine. At first his life was regular; but he soon forgot his vows, and ended by quitting the monastery to stroll about with a young woman named Giron Dieda, who had captivated his fancy. With her he wandered about for ten years, with no other resource for procuring a livelihood than his talents and his verses. He had commenced a poem in Latin, which, as far as it went, displayed much elegance; but he soon quitted serious poetry, in which he could at most only hope to obtain a secondary rank, for a kind which he called Macaronic, in which he conceived himself qualified to occupy the first place. The basis of the language employed by him is Latin, mixed with Italian words, and still more with the Mantuan patois, which was his mother tongue, and to which he gave Latin terminations. In his

---

1 Folengo, in his verses, has several times mentioned the place of his birth in his own peculiar vein:

Magas suo veniat Merlino parva Cipada.— Mantua Virgilio gaudet, Verona Catullo, Dante suo florens urbs Tusca, Cipada Cocajo.— Nec Merlinus ego, laus, gloria, fama Cipadze, etc. FOLIATING poem he recounts the ridiculous adventures of a hero called Baldus, among which are several which had happened to himself; and under the mask of burlesque and buffoonery may be found thoughts and maxims instinct with good sense, not to mention original and piquant touches of satire on the conduct of the great, the vanity of titles, and the different pursuits of men. Instead of dividing his poem into books or cantos, he divided it into macaronics (macaronica prima, macaronica secunda, etc.), of which there were seventeen in the first edition and twenty-five in the subsequent ones; and he published the whole under the name of Merlinus Cocajus, which afterwards became famous. In a few years several editions were published; but the success of these facetious productions did not prevent their being bitterly criticised. The author was severely censured, both for the style and the license of idea and expression in which he indulged; a circumstance which irritated him so much that, changing language and name, he composed in three months a satirical Italian poem, in eight cantos, on the infancy of Roland, to which he gave the title of Orlandoino, and affixed the name of Limerno Pitocco; Limerno being the anagram of Merlino, and Pitocco or medicament being significative of the state to which he was occasionally reduced. He had nevertheless made many friends in the world by the reputation which he had acquired, the extent of his knowledge, and the agreeable qualities of his mind; and he had even retained some in the cloister, into which, when tired of a wandering and miserable life, he was received back with open arms. He signalized his return by a work on the subject of his conversion, entitled II Chaos del Triperuno, or The Chaos of Three for One, meaning himself, who had been successively Theophilus Folengo, Merlin Cocajo, and Limerno Pitocco. The work is a medley of verses, songs, and narrations, in Latin, Italian, and the Macaronic dialect, in short, a veritable chaos, divided into three parts, called, after Statius, Sylva. Folengo appears to have remained during several years at Capri, a country house belonging to his order, between Brescia and Bergamo, and to have divided his time between this retreat and Brescia till 1536 or 1537, in one or other of which years he composed his Italian poem on the Humanity of the Son of God, the most orthodox of all his works, and which would be the most edifying if one could really be edified by that which is unreadable. He was then sent into Sicily to the monastery of St Martin delle Scale, where he appears to have remained till 1543, when he returned into Italy, and retired to the convent of the Holy Cross of Campese, near Bassano, on the banks of the Brenta, where he died in little more than a year afterwards, 9th December 1544, in the fifty-third year of his age.

FOLIATING OF LOOKING-Glasses, the process of covering the glass with amalgam, in order that it may reflect the image. The method, as practised at the largest looking-glass manufactory in Britain, at St Helen's in Lancashire, is as follows:—On a smooth and level table of stone or iron with a slightly elevated border, mercury is poured in a thin stratum; the mercury is covered with tinfoil; and the glass-plate, previously well cleaned, is slowly slid along the metallic surface, so as to exclude air-bubbles; weights are then placed on the glass, to make its contact with the amalgam of tin and mercury more complete. The amalgam soon adheres to the plate, which is then raised on its edge to allow the superfluous mercury to drain off. It is then carried to the drying-room—and the process is complete.