Various

“ I observe an entry of “peas to boil for the men.” They had porridge then, at all events, in addition to their wages; and these wages, if they had so chosen, could further have purchased them meat, quite as well as at the present day; though, alas for our poor peasantry, this is not saying much for them; and even of that little smack of meat they will soon be debarred, if the present system—but I am intruding on sacred ground, and must leave the poor fellows to their hard work and scanty meals. ”

“ Samolus, or as some copies read Samosum, is said to be derived from two Celtic words, san, salutary, and mos, pig; denoting a property in the plant which answers to the description of Pliny, who says the Gauls considered the Samolus as a specific in all maladies of swine and cattle. {232} But there is not less difficulty in identifying this plant than in the former case. Some have thought it the same as the little marsh plant, with small white flowers, which Linnæus calls Samolus Valerandi, while others consider it to be the Anemone Pulsatilla. ”

“ A new career of usefulness and honour has been opened up to Sylvanus Urban, who seems determined to merit the addition lately made to his title, and to become what is really a desideratum in English Literature—a good “Historical Review.”
Messrs. Sotheby and Co. will sell, on Thursday and Friday next, a very choice Selection of Magnificent Books and Pictorial Works from the Library of an eminent Collector, including large paper copies of the Antiquarian Works of Visconti, Montfaucon, &c.; the first four editions of Shakspeare, and other works of similar high character. ”

“ We sincerely hope possessors of articles suitable for exhibition, will not fail to take advantage of it. They should immediately enter into communication with the Honorary Secretary to the Exhibition, at the rooms of the Society of Arts, or they will be too late.
The Gentlemen’s Magazine realizes all our anticipations. The Reviews are of a very superior order. Justice is done to as well as upon the authors who have come under notice, and the original articles are of high value ”

“ But, on the other hand, in p. 8. the allusion to the “Orphics,” which is struck out in the Latin, is retained in the English; and in the latter there is no notice taken of “Empedocles,” which is inserted in the margin of the Latin. In p. 11. “Ratio naturalis” is personified, and governs the verb vidit, which is repeated several times. This is changed by the corrector into vidimus; but in the English passage, though varying much from the Latin, the personification is retained. In p. 58., “Dion Cassius” is corrected to “Xiphilinus;” but the mistake is preserved in the English version. ”

“ It is, perhaps, a still greater disadvantage that I should appear to depend for proofs upon a bare enumeration of parallel passages; when I know that the space I should require for the purposes of stating the case fully and fairly, and, as I think, conclusively, would be utterly inconsistent with that brevity which must be with you an essential condition; while, at the same time, I know of no medium through which I am so likely to enlist the attention of a “fit audience” as your publication. ”

“ I beg leave to inform “SELEUCUS,” that The Phœnix, with an English version, and with the Latin original, is to be found in the Codex Exoniensis, edited by me, in 1842, for the Society of Antiquaries. The Latin ascribed to Lactantius, is printed in the Variourum edition of Claudian, and, I believe, in the editions of Lactantius.
Jan. 30, 1850.
B. THORPE.
PORTRAITS OF LUTHER AND ERASMUS.
Your correspondent, “R.G.” (No. 13. p. 203.) ”

“ Both the date of Hamlet, therefore, and—whichever way decided—the conclusion drawn from the supposed mistake, I regard as open questions. There is yet another circumstance which Mr. Collier thinks may strengthen his conclusion with regard to the date of this play. He refers to the production of Dekker’s Medicine for a Curst Wife, which he thinks was a revival of the old Taming of a Shrew, brought out as a rival to Shakspeare’s play. This is easily answered. In the first place, Katharine, the Shrew, is not a “curst wife:” she becomes a wife, it is true, in the course of the play ”

“ Come hither, sirha! Boy! Clown. Boy! O disgrace to my person!” &c. —Faustus, vol. ii, p. 131.
Leaving the question in this position for the present, I shall be glad of such information from any of your readers as may tend to throw a light on the date of Shakspeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I find Mr. Collier’s opinion expressed in the following words:—
“The great probability is that Hamlet was written at the earliest in 1601, and the Taming of the Shrew perhaps came from the pen of its author not very long afterwards.” ”

“ It is requested that all Works proposed for exhibition be punctually sent to the Rooms of the SOCIETY OF ARTS, John Street, Adelphi, on or before the 20th of February, it being imperative that the Exhibition should open in early March. ”

“ I, for my part, would not be bound not to omit, in a hasty enumeration, and having no books to refer to, more important works than the Taming of the Shrew. In short, the omission by Meres proves no more than that he either did not think of the play, or did not think it necessary to mention it. To the second assumption, I answer that the date of the first Hamlet is “not proven:” it may have been an early play. From the play of Hamlet, in its earlier form, is the name Baptiste, where it is used in conjunction with Albertus, taken ”

“ Thence before to earth it fall,
The Druid in his hallow’d pall
Receives the prize.”
Pliny, in his Natural History (lib. xxiv. cap. 11.) gives a circumstantial account of the ceremonies used by the Druids in gathering the Selago and Samolus, and of the uses to which they were applied:—
“Similis berbæ huie sabinæ est Selago appellata. ”

“ Lay of the Phœnix.—”SELEUCUS” (No. 13, p. 203.) asks, “Is there any published edition of the hexameter poem by Lactantius, which is said to have suggested the idea of the Anglo-Saxon Lay of the Phœnix?” This poem is not in hexameter, but in elegiac verse; and though, on account of its brevity, we could not expect that it would have been separately published, it is to be found very commonly at the end of the works of Lactantius; for example, in three editions before me, Basil. ”

“ Is there any English translation of Ælian’s Various History, or of the work ascribed to the same author on the Peculiarities of Animals?
East Winch. Jan. 1850.
Selago and Samolus.—The Selago (mentioned by “PWCCA,” No. 10. p. 157.) , in Welsh Gras Duw (Gratia Dei) , was held by the Druids as a charm against all misfortunes; they called it Dawn y Dovydd, the gift of the Lord. They also ascribed great virtues to the Samolus, which was called Gwlydd, mild or tender. All that can be known respecting the Selago and Samolus, may be seen in Borlase’s Antiquities of Cornwall. ”

“ Corney’s conjecture may be right, as Forby (Vocabulary, vol. ii. p. 258.) mentions Poke-Day as the day on which the allowance of corn is made to the labourers, who, in some places, receive a part of their wages in that form. Now the Pokerer might be the officer who distributed the grain on these occasions.
I open my note to add, that Mr. Gutch (No. 14. p. 211.) will find, in Sterne’s Sentimental Journey,—”God tempers the wind,” said Maria, “to the shorn lamb.” ”

“ Lear. “When we are born, we cry, that we are come
To this great stage of fools,—This a good block?”
—King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 6.
In this passage [I bracket Gloster] we find no fewer than forty-two monosyllables following each other consecutively. ”

“ A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. “When found, make a note of.”—CAPTAIN CUTTLE. CONTENTS.
WAGES IN 17TH AND 19TH CENTURIES.
Running my eye accidentally through the household book of Sir Roger Twysden, from 1659 to 1670, it occurred to me to make a comparison between the relative prices of meat and wages, as there given, in order to ascertain the position of our peasantry in these parts, at the close of the 17th century. ”

“ French Maxim.—I beg to inform your correspondent “R.V.” in reply to his query (No. 14. p. 215.) , that the maxim quoted is the 218th of Rochefoucauld: “L’hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu.”
J.H.F.
Singular Motto.—The “singular motto” which occasions “P.H.F.’s” wonder (No. 14. p. 214.) , is, without doubt, a cypher, and only to be rendered by those who have a Key. Such are not unfrequent in German, Austrian, or Bohemian Heraldry.
J.H.F.
Discurs. ”

“ Collier observes, an “unusually large sum” for a new piece, and not likely to be paid for the bashing up of an old one. I am thus left entirely without a clue, derivable from external evidence, to the date of this play; and shall be glad to know if there is any thing, throwing light upon the point, which I may have overlooked. That more important consequences are involved in this question than appear upon the face of it, I think I shall be able to show in a future communication ”

“ Many of these “pallaces” have been converted into coal-cellars. Perhaps pales may have been used originally to form these inclosures in lieu of walls;—and hence the word “pallace” would mean a place paled in. I find repeated mention made of “pallaces” in a schedule attached to a deed of the Corporation of Totnes, bearing date September 18th, 1719, a copy of which is now before me, and from it the following extracts are taken ”

“ Pokership—God tempers the Wind.—I am disposed to think that Parkership will turn out to be the right explanation, because almost every forest or chase contained a fenced park, in which the deer were confined ”

“ The prices are for ready money only.
It will contain, amongst other subjects, a large collection of Books on HERALDRY, GENEALOGY, and FAMILY HISTORY, a few Books on ANGLING, some early ENGLISH DICTIONARIES, Books of POETRY, HISTORY, TOPOGRAPHY, and ENGRAVINGS, with various works in other interesting departments of Miscellaneous Literature. ”

“ I send you a few extracts, by which it will be seen that, in Kent, at least, our agricultural labourers appear to have been in far better condition than those of the rest of England, who, in Mr. Macaulay’s brilliant work, are represented as living “almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats,” owing to the exorbitantly high price of meat, as compared with the ordinary scale of wages.
As to meat, I find the following entries:—
Through this period we have:—
“Cheese per load, i.e. ”

“ T. Hudson Turner (No. 7. p. 100.) asks, “What is the earliest known instance of the use of a beaver hat in England?”
{236} Fairholt (Costume in England) says, the earliest notice of it is in the reign of Elizabeth, and gives the following quotation from Stubbe’s Anatomy of Abuses, 1580:—
“And as the fashions be rare and strange, so is the stuff whereof their hats be made divers also ”

“ The works in which the Germans have sought to do honour to their great protestant saint, are numerous enough to fill a small library but two of them are so remarkable as to deserve notice, 1. “Luther’s Merkwürdige Lebensumstande bey seiner Medicinalischen Leibesconstitution, Krankheiten, geistlichen und leiblichen Anfectungen und andern Zufallen, &c., von F.G. Keil,” Leipsig, 1764. 2. “Luther’s Merkwürdige Reisegeschichte zu Erganzung seiner Lebensumstande, von Jo. ”

“ It would be well to compare it with the English translation.”
The nature of many of the corrections and additions (which are very numerous) , evidently shows a preparation for the press. I have compared this copy with the English edition, published in the same year, and find that some of the {228}corrections were adopted; this, however, but in a few instances, while in one, to be mentioned presently, a palpable mistake, corrected in the MS. Latin notes, stands in the translation. ”

“ A clean, handsomely bound copy of this valuable repertory of literary, scientific, and fine art information during the last quarter of a century.
PALEY, (W.) D.D., THE ENTIRE WORKS OF, With a BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH of the AUTHOR By the Rev. D.S. WAYLAND, 5 vols. 8vo. Half calf, extra marble edges; fine Portrait. New and neat. Only 1l. 2s. 1837.
PORTRAITS OF THE PRINCES AND PEOPLE OF INDIA. By the Hon. Miss EDEN. Drawn on Stone by L. DICKENSON. Folio Half-bound; morocco. 24 fine Engravings. 1l. 5s.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI, from the Commencement to June, 1849. 16 vols. ”

“ FRERON L’ANNE LITTERAIRE, from 1754 to 1777, wanting a few intermediate Volumes. 166 vols. 12mo., calf, neat, 2l. 2s. 1754-1777.
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By order of the Committee
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