a 50l. note and a portrait of Lady Carve. He 2. "The early education of both was neglected." PROF. TOMLINSON has here the support of Rowe's biography and Ben Jonson's “small Latin and less Greek"; but against them is the preponderating evidence of Shakespeare's own work. Take 'Venus and Adonis," "the first heire of my invention "; Lucrecre,' the Sonnets, and his earlier dramatic title-works-are they the work of bizarre genius, of some clever sciolist? Surely not! He must have accumulated wisely in his adolescent days, or he could never have scattered so exuberantly in his years of labour. His early works are packed with evidences of refined education, of studied restraint, of correct classical information. In bis early manhood he evidently moved among men of learning, IMITATION OF CHRIST.'-Would some reader of 'N. & Q.' be good enough to give the full page of an edition of the above, printed in Dublin, between the years 1843 and 1857? This edition has a short life of Thomas à Kempis, with practical reflections on the text of each chapter, with short prayer, pp. xxiv, 488, 8vo. Dublin, S. H. VERSES BY WHITTIER.-In which of Whittier's for Meres, M.A., tells how sonnets of baffling poems do the lines occur: A dreary place would be this earth And also the lines : Oh what would the world be to us G. C. S. 66 Replies. SHAKSPEARE AND MOLIÈRE. L. G. subtlety and exquisite beauty were dispersed by him among his private friends; while the purpose of 'Love's Labour's Lost '—to ridicule the pedantic methods of the existing schools of learning and the coteries of culture-satisfy that his education was fully "up to date." For want of space I would refer the unconvinced to J. Russell Lowell's brilliant essay, 'Shakespeare Once More.' 3. "Neither of them was happily married." Molière was married at forty to a girl of eighteen; Shakespeare was wedded at eighteen to a lady nine years his senior. Molière was manifestly unhappy. But was Shakespeare? There is not a tittle of satisfactory evidence to prove that Shakespeare's marriage was a failure. The disparity of ages, the marriage licence, and the "second best bed," prove nothing; while his love of home, his amazingly beautiful characterization of female character, his attitude towards marital alliance, as displayed in his works, rather favour a life of connubial satisfaction. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps remarks on this subject: "Whether the early alliance was a prudent one in a wordly point of view may admit of doubt, but that the married pair continued on affectionate terms, until they were separated by the poet's death, may be gathered from the early local tradition that his wife did earnestly desire to be laid in the same grave with him.' The legacy to her of the second best bed is an evidence which does not negative the later testimony."-Outlines,' fifth edition, p. 56. (8th S. ii. 42, 190, 294, 332, 389, 469.) Parallelism has been, since the days of Plutarch, a favourite device of biographers. Fascinating as the practice is, both to the writer and his readers, a captious critic will have little difficulty in finding occasion to challenge the relevancy or truth of lines or points of resemblance. More especially is this the case with Shakespeare, where so little is definitely known, where so much is purely conjectural. PROF. TOMLINSON has detected fifteen 6. "Each was careless about publishing his points of resemblance." Many of these, so far works; or rather, objected to do so, lest they as Shakespeare is concerned, are founded on tra- should be acted by rival dramatic companies." In ditions and assumptions which recent investigation the first version of the 1609 edition of Troylus has wholly rejected or dubiously questions. PROF. and Cresseid' there is this advertisement: "Eternall TOMLINSON'S statements are a little too positive; reader, you have heere a new play, never stal'd they give the impression that they are founded on with the stage, never clapper-claw'd with the irrefragable biographic data, whereas such does not palmes of the vulger." This is an instance of a exist in a life of the Bard of Avon. I have long play published before it was produced on the stage. waited for some of the eminent Shakespearian It has been estimated that there were sixty-five contributors of N. & Q.' to touch on these resem-editions of Shakespeare's works published before blances. Molière has, up to this, monopolized his death. The dedication to 'Venus and Adonis ' attention. It is time to attract interrogatory and the typographical excellence of the work have notice to the English poet. led commentators almost unanimously to believe that Shakespeare himself saw this work through, the press. In the 1598 edition of 'Love's Labour's Lost' we find the words, "Newly corrected and augmented," in the 1604 quarto of Hamlet,' "Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie." The almost inevitable conclusion is that this studied revision, this laboured overhauling, was done solely with a view to publication. So thought Mr. Swinburne, in his fine 'Study of Shakespeare': "Scene by scene, line for line, stroke upon stroke, and touch after touch, he went over all the old laboured ground again, and not to ensure success in his own day, and fill his pockets with contemporary pence, but merely and wholly with a purpose to make it worthy of himself and his future students...... Not one single alteration in the whole play (Hamlet') can possibly have been made with a view to stage effect, or to present popularity and profit......Every change in the text of Hamlet' has impaired its fitness for the stage, and increased its value for the closet in exact and perfect proportion."Pp. 163, 164. Mr Theodore Watts also refers to this in his obituary notice of 'Lord Tennyson': "That he was not an improvisatore, however, any one can see who will take the trouble to compare the first edition of Romeo and Juliet' with the received text, the first sketch of The Merry Wives of Windsor' with the play as we now have it, and the Hamlet' of 1603 with the Hamlet' of 1604, and with the still further varied version of the play given by Heminge and Condell in the Folio of 1623. If we take into account, moreover, that it is only by the lucky chapter of accidents that we now possess the earlier forms of the three plays mentioned above, and that most likely the other plays were once in a like condition, we shall come to the conclusion that there was no more vigilant worker with Dante's sieve than Shakspeare."- Athenæum, 3389, p. 483. 10. "Each disliked his profession." In support of this PROF. TOMLINSON proffers three oftquoted lines of Sonnet cxi. This is not sufficient. Admitting that Shakespeare referred to himself, it could only be true of the mood, or time, or condition under which it was written. Again and again in the sonnets we stumble across passages which triumphantly prove that Shakespeare knew his work to be immortal and took honest pride in it, "desiring this man's art, and that man's scope" that he might excel : Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. Sonnet lv. genius are enshrined in these works. I do not know whether students have ever remarked the innate modesty of the man as displayed in his epilogues. He over and over again expresses his desire to please, and his hope that the work may give satisfaction; he pleads for forbearance and promises improvement. None but a writer deeply concerned could have written such epilogues. In 1597 Shakespeare purchased New Place, and in 1598 he is written down "William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, in the county of Warwick, gentleman," and is returned as the holder of ten quarters of corn. Necessity has ever been the hard law that binds men to obnoxious pursuits; he was now sufficiently independent to have renounced his profession if it was distasteful. Yet it was in these years of comparative affluence that he produced his noblest works. 13. “Each preferred the idea or matter, to the comparative disregard of the manner." Ben Jon son did not think so :— Shakespeare must enjoy a part. For though the poet's There are one or two points to which I might refer, but space compels me to refrain. PROF. TOMLINSON does not carry his survey to the end. Will he allow me to do so? Here at least a striking contrast presents itself. Poor Molière! how pitiful is the last page of his " strange eventful history." "His means of death, his obscure burial-no noble rite, nor formal ostentation," huddled when the maimed rites and a small funeral cortège. We "night was darkest into a begrudged grave, with turn to Shakespeare's demise. Buried honourably in the chancel of his own country church, attended by friends and mourned for by his family, his affairs in order, with faith expressed in his 'Pilot,' "when he had crossed the Bar," while those who knew felt that a prince and a great man had fallen in Britain. This is gratifying, and redounds to the credit of our own beloved country. Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Sonnet lxxxi. W. A. HENDERSON. In regard to the earliest collected editions of Molière's works, I have a volume of the 1682 edition which contains the "Privilege du Roy," granted by Louis XIV. to Denis Thierry, "Marchand Libraire Imprimeur," for an extension of the nine years granted to Molière, on March 18, 1671, in which he was to have the sole right of printing, "toutes les Pièces de Théâtre, composées pour nostre divertissement " by him. Denis Thierry humbly represents that by the terms of the original "permission," as only one edition of the works had been published, finished in 1675, the "Privilege" did not expire until 1684. This, however, seems to have been disputed by other "Libraires et Imprimeurs," and in consequence, on Feb. 15, 1680, "En consideration des grandes sommes qu'il a payées, pour achepter la Cession dudit Privilege, et des frais et dépences qu'il luy a convenu faire pour ladite impres sion," Denis Thierry was permitted,— George Cruikshank, G. M. Greig, Andrew Geddes, R.A., Sir John Gilbert, R. Herdman, D. O. Hill, R.S.A.. Sir George Harvey, P. R.S.A., William Kidd, R.S.A., Sir Edwin Landseer, R. A., Thomas Landseer, W. H. Lizars, E. H. Miller (New York), R. C. Lucas, W. H. Paton, David Scott, R.S.A., John Moyr Smith, J. S. Storer, Thomas Stothard, R.A., Rev. M. W. Peters, R.A., John Thurston, J. McWhirter, J. M. Wright. This last artist must not be confounded with another Wright ("Scotus") of the same initials. The illustrator of Cunningham's quarto, born in London, was a pupil of Stothard, and these very beautiful transcripts have, I think, never been excelled as subject illustrations to Burns's poems, and I am glad to find, from MR. VIRTUE'S reply, that they are still intact and in safe custody. The picture of Tam O'Shanter,' by Abraham Cooper, R. A., engraved in the same edition, was originally exhibited at the British Institution in 1814. Burns was himself a landscape painter-in words. His poems, when describing the scenery of his David Octavius Hill must be awarded the laurels much-loved country, are pictures; and to the late for perpetuating with his pencil these word pictures on canvas. Sixty beautiful landscapes, each and all painted on the spots suggested by the references in the poems, worthily illustrate the "land of Burns," under which title they were follow-collectively engraved. The original paintings were publicly exhibited at Edinburgh in 1841, and an octavo catalogue of the collection was printed. "d'imprimer, vendre et debiter les Pièces de Théâtre et autres (Euvres dudit de Molière, durant le temps et espace de six années; à compter du jour que ledit Privilege par nous accordé audit de Molière, en datte du 18 Mars 1671, sera expiré." I suppose that the extended "Privilege" would end in 1690. Liverpool. J. F. MANSERGH. When, as DR. BREWER reminds us, François de Puisqu'à Paris en dénie BURNS IN ART (8th S. ii. 428, 451, 472).-Your correspondent's surprise at the few exhibited pictures during recent years deriving inspiration from the verse of Scotia's bard applies equally, I think, to other poets. Apparently very material subjects at the present time attract the bawbees in preference to the super-mundane breathings of a poet's soul. Still, from the time of David Allan down to Charles Martin Hardie a large number of eminent artists have devoted their pencils to depicting both people and places immortalized by the verse of Burns. My Burnsiana notes yield the following list, which may be of some assistance to MR. SHELLEY; but it is far from being complete. As many of the paintings and drawings have been engraved as illustrations to the poems, I shall be pleased to supply the references should your correspondent require them: David Allan, Sir William Allan, P.R.S.A., T. Allom, W. H. Bartlett, J. Burnet, A. Carse, Sam Bough, Abraham Cooper, R.A., F. A. Chapman (New York), John Faed, I have lately seen a series of oil pictures by Thomas Stothard, R.A., illustrative of Burns s poems; but as my reply is already too long and discursive, I will defer further reference to them until a future occasion. Chelsea, S. W. EDWARD BARRINGTON NASH. Permit me to refer your correspondent to some excellent engravings from paintings by well-known Scotch artists, published for the members of the Royal Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Scotland, illustrative of Burns's poems. Three of them are in my possession (1)The Soldier's Return,' 1857; (2) Auld Lang Syne,' 1859; (3) Illustrated Songs of Robert Burns,' 1861, each of them containing half a dozen well-executed engravings, and procurable, no doubt, for a small sum. The original pictures from which they were taken are probably in private collections in Scotland. I can remember to have seen many years ago one of them from No. 3, "Last May a braw wooer," painted by Erskine Nicol, R.S.A., in which the figures were remarkably well executed, at "the tryst o' Dalgarnock." The "braw wooer was looking at Jean, who is also casting a sly glance at him over her left shoulder. She was dressed in the homely attire of bed - gown, short fustian petticoat, and apron; near her was "cousin Bess," Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. ST. CITHA (8th S. ii. 309, 412).—I have a coloured engraving of an ancient piece of stained glass which is said to be in existence in a window in the north aisle of the choir of Winchester Cathedral. It represents St. Sitha standing in a sort of canopied niche. Her robe is white, with a narrow yellow border, and with wide sleeves. The under garment appears to be red. She has long golden hair, and round the head is a halo. In the right hand she holds a book closed and clasped, and in the left hand a bunch of keys. On a scroll beneath are the words, "Sca. Sitha." CARUS VALE COLLIER. Davington Priory, Faversham. May I add to what has been advanced that the late Dr. Husenbeth, in his 'Emblems of Saints,' third edition, Norwich, 1882, identifies St. Sitha with St. Osyth? He states that she was queen, virgin, abbess, and martyr, and flourished circa 170, and that she is shown (1) with a crown or a table before her, (2) carrying her head cut off, (3) with a stag near her. JAMES HOOper. Norwich, "AT" FOLLOWING 66 SMELL AND FEEL "(8th S. ii. 347, 452).—An old friend, who brought us flowers from time to time, would say, when presenting them, "Here is something for you to smell to." His father came from Yorkshire to settle in the neighbourhood of London. DOSSETOR. Tunbridge Wells. To "smell at" is quite common in Ireland, and is hardly provincial. A good instance of the use occurs in Hall Caine's' Deemster,'" Smelling to the peonies, and never a whiff of a smell at the breed of them" (p. 44, ed. 1883). It is a common form " in the Isle of Man. Ben Jonson has "smell to" SMOLLETT'S RODERICK RANDOM' (8th S. ii. 463). The quotation given under the above heading irresistibly reminds me of the ways of a hen-a vigorous peck when she discovers anything that does not please her, and much cackling over any small grain which meets with her approval whilst she is engaged in her scratching. The faults in Cleland's book may be "thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa," but I doubt whether it was worth the labour of raking them together and trying to annihilate the doctor at the expense of so much It seems a heat. Any scribbler can be caustic. Mr. David Herbert, in his short 'Life of "Strap has been the pride and the boast of four claimants. It is not in this case greatness thrust on unwilling victims; it is greatness urged in claim, and utilized to a bargain in business.' I think this is not correct respecting Lewis. In Nichol's 'Literary Anecdotes' (vol. iii. p. 465), which is quoted by Roscoe in his Life of Smollett' (1848, p. xl-the edition of the Works' illustrated by George Cruikshank), occurs : ་ "Mrs. Lewis often assured the writer of this article that her husband denied the assertions of many people, as often as it was mentioned to him; but there is every reason to suppose," &c. Mr. Herbert adds that Dr. Chambers gives the details (of the claims) " in a note" and to it refers the curious. Dr. Chambers's work, as is the case with many another, is not among my books, otherwise the exact reference should be furnished, and I could judge better about Lewis. But a shallow purse, like a shallow wit, has to answer for much at times. Both are detestable always. H. G. GRIFFINHOOFE. 34, St. Petersburg Place, W. GOLDEN BULLETS (8th S. ii. 487).-The following extract will, I think, supply a sufficient answer to COL. FISHWICK'S inquiry : "Another time, having read in Dr. Gerhard the ad mirable effects of swallowing of a gold bullet upon his own father, in a case like mine, I got a gold bullet and swallowed it (between 20 s. and 30 s. weight); and, hav ing taken it, I knew not how to be delivered of it again: nothing stirred it; and a gentleman having done the I took clysters and purges for about three weeks, but like, the bullet never came from it [him?] until he died, and it was cut out: But at last my neighhours set a day apart to fast and pray for me, and I was freed from my danger, in the beginning of that day."-Reliquiæ Baxterianæ,' part i. p. 81. Y. "DUTCH NIGHTINGALES" (8th S. ii. 208, 316, 352). At the last reference C. C. B. remarks that the "Lincolnshire bagpipes," mentioned in '1 Henry IV.,' I. ii., have reference "to the valence of frogs in this fenny country." I cannot help thinking that he has hit upon a wrong interpretation of the words. Surely the allusion is to veritable bagpipes. This view of the case seems to be proved by the following passage from Robert Armin's Nest of Ninnies,' 1608, p. 9, reprint of the Shakespeare Society, 1842: have been the habit of glancing at modern times and modern combinations. When we are reading of the old days we do not want our thoughts to be sent off in the direction of the House of Commons. EDWARD PEACOCK. "The MR. BOUCHIER will probably find something to interest him in Dr. Mahaffy's Problems in Greek pre-History,' the first chapter of which deals with the English historians of Greece in the present century. The Athenæum of Oct. 1 (p. 446) says: comparison between Thirlwall and Grote will strike every one who is familiar with their famous histories of Greece as summing up their respective merits in most excellent style." JOHN RANDALL. CITY COMPANIES (8th S. ii. 427).-All City companies now surviving have records which are kept in custody of their clerks, who are authorized to demand a fee for every search. Such records contain entries of apprenticeship and admission to the freedom, the former giving each youth's parentage and place of birth. They are seldom indexed, so any applicant should be provided with a proximate date. Some companies lost their books at the Great Fire of 1666, as the Vintners and, I am informed, the Glovers. A counterpart of each entry should be found in the Chamberlain's Office at Guildhall, but imperfectly indexed. A. HALL. 13, Paternoster Row, E.C. TOPEHALL (8th S. ii. 407)-Macaulay, whose memory was as tenacious as it was reproductive, no doubt took this name from 'Roderick Random' -in which story Orson Topehall, the brother of Narcissa, is represented as a hard-drinking squire -and then gave it to the class of convivial squire-sult the History of the Twelve Livery Companies Your correspondent cannot do better than conarchy of the days of Sir Robert Walpole. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. WESLEY AND THE MICROSCOPE (8th S. ii. 448). -From his sermon on the Imperfection of Human Knowledge,''Works,' ix. 314 (edition in sixteen volumes, 1811): of London,' by William Herbert, late Librarian to 71, Brecknock Road. "With regard to Animals. Are Microscopic Animals, so called, real Animals, or not? If they are, are theyTo explain the use of the supplementary lines not essentially different from all other Animals in the universe, as not requiring any food, not generating or being generated? Are they no Animals at all, but merely inanimate particles of matter, in a state of fermentation? How totally ignorant are the most sagacious of men, touching the whole affair of generation! Even the generation of Men." The Field, Swinfleet, Goole. GEO. WEST. GROTE'S 'HISTORY OF GREECE' (8th S. ii. 448). -MR. BOUCHIER'S questions, to be answered fully and as they deserve, would occupy far more space than N. & Q.' can afford to give, and it may well be that on such a matter the opinions of those capable of judging would be found divided. I think Grote superior to Thirlwall, but that his is by no means all that a history of Greece should be. One great defect of Grote seems to me to = MARKS AND LETTERS ON SHIPS (8th S. ii. 449). which are to be found on many vessels alongside of the Plimsoll mark, it may be as well to state the meaning of those which may probably be painted on a steamer trading, say, to the East, and sometimes across the Atlantic. The highest supplementary line, higher than Plimsoll's, is marked with the letters F. W. Fresh Water. The boat can be put down to this line when loading in a fresh-water dock or river, because when she gets into salt water she will "lift," as it is called, on account of the greater density of the salt water. Alongside of this, and very slightly lower, there may be a line with the initials I.S.= India Summer, which marks the point to which she may be loaded in the Indian seas. in summer. Below the latter appears a line S., which is the steamer's summer draught in the |