CHAUCER'S NIGHT CHARM

Mr. Thoms, to whom English mediæval literature is so much beholden, asks very earnestly for some information about "the white Paternoster" and "seynte Petres soster," (No. 15. p. 229.). Perhaps the following guesses may not be without use. First, then, about the "white Paternoster:" Henry Parker, a Carmelite friar of Doncaster, who wrote his admirable *Compendiouse Treatyse*, or *Dialogue of Dives and Pauper*, during the reign of Edward IV., speaking against superstitions, and especially "craftes and conjurations with holy prayers," says: "They that use holy wordes of the gospel, Pater noster,…