CONTENTS.

Page

Our Shakspearian Correspondence 261

Notes:—

Mr. Pepys and East London Topography, &c. 263

Picts' Houses in Aberdeenshire 264

Folk Lore:—Legends of the County Clare—Devonshire Cures for the Thrush 264

Heraldic Notes:—Arms of Granville—Arms of Richard, King of the Romans 265

Shakspeare Correspondence, by J. O. Halliwell and Thos. Keightley 265

Minor Notes:—Longfellow's Poetical Works—Sir Walter Raleigh—Curious Advertisement—Gravestone Inscription—Monumental Inscription 267

Queries:—

Sir Philip Warwick 268

Seals of the Borough of Great Yarmouth, by E. S. Taylor 269

Minor Queries:—Hand in Bishop Canning's Church—"I put a spoke in his wheel"—Sir W. Hewit—Passage in Virgil—Fauntleroy—Animal Prefixes descriptive of Size and Quality—Punning Devices—"Pinece with a stink"—Soiled Parchment Deeds—Roger Wilbraham, Esq.'s, Cheshire Collection—Cambridge and Ireland—Derivation of Celt—Ancient Superstition against the King of England entering or even beholding the Town of Leicester—Burton—The Camera Lucida—Francis Moore—Waugh, Bishop of Carlisle—Palace at Enfield—"Solamen miseris," &c.—Soke Mills—Second Wife of Mallet 269

Minor Queries with Answers:—Books burned by the Common Hangman—Captain George Cusack—Sir Ralph Winwood 272

Replies:—

Books chained to Desks in Churches, by J. Booker, &c. 273

Epitaphs by Cuthbert Bede, B.A., &c. 273

Parochial Libraries 274

"Up, Guards, and at them!" by Frank Howard 275

Photographic Correspondence:—Mr. Muller's Process—Stereoscopic Angles—Ammonio-nitrate of Silver 275

Replies to Minor Queries:—Sir Thomas Elyot—Judges styled "Reverend"—"Hurrah" and other War-cries—Major André—Early Edition of the New Testament—Ladies' Arms borne in a Lozenge—Sir William Hankford—Maullies, Manillas—The Use of the Hour-glass in Pulpits—Derivation of the Word "Island"—A Cob-wall—Oliver Cromwell's Portrait—Manners of the Irish—Chronograms and Anagrams—"Haul over the Coals,"—Sheer Hulk—The Magnet—Fierce—Connexion between the Celtic and Latin Languages—Acharis, &c. 276

Miscellaneous:—

Notes on Books, &c. 282

Books and Odd Volumes wanted 282

Notices to Correspondents 282

Advertisements 283

OUR SHAKSPEARIAN CORRESPONDENCE.

We have received from a valued and kind correspondent (not one of those emphatically good-natured friends so wittily described by Sheridan) the following temperate remonstrance against the tone which has distinguished several of our recent articles on Shakspeare:—

Shakspeare Suggestions (Vol. viii., pp. 124. 169.).—

I am grateful to A. E. B. for referring me to the article on "Shakspeare Criticism" in the last number of Blackwood's Magazine. It is a very able paper, and worthy of general attention.

I ought to add some few explanatory observations upon the subject of my former communication, but the tone of A. E. B.'s comments forbids me to proceed with the discussion; the more especially as my suggestion has been made a reason for introducing into your pages comments which seem to me to be altogether unwarrantable upon other portions of the article in Blackwood. Whoever may be the writer of that article—I do not know—he needs no other defence than a reference to his paper. It is not on his account that I venture to allude to this subject; it is rather on yours, Mr. Editor, and with a view to the welfare of your paper. I cannot think that you or it will be benefited by converting conversational gossip about Shakspeare difficulties into "a duel in the form of a debate," seasoned with sarcasm, insinuation, and satiric point. This is not the kind of matter one expects to find in "N. & Q." neither do I think your pages should be made a vehicle for "showing up" such of "the herd of menstrual Aristarchi" as chance to differ in opinion from some of your smart and peremptory, but not unfrequently inaccurate and illiberal correspondents.

I make these observations on two grounds: first, as one who has many reasons for being anxious for the prosperity of "N. & Q.;" and secondly, because I know it to be the opinion of several of your earliest and warmest friends, that there is a tendency in some of your Shakspeare contributors to indulge in insinuation, imputation of motives, and many other things which ought never to appear in your pages. We lately observed, with deep regret, that you were misled (not by A. E. B.) into the insertion of unjustifiable insinuations, levelled against a gentleman whom we all know to be a man of the highest personal honour.

The questions which are mooted in your pages ought to be discussed with the mutual forbearance and enlarged liberality which are predominant in the general society of our metropolis; not with the keen and angry partizanship which distinguishes the petty squabbles of a country town.

Icon.

Our readers know that we ourselves recently noticed the tendency of too many of our correspondents to depart from the courteous spirit by which the earlier communications to this Journal were distinguished. The intention we then announced of playing the tyrant in future, and exercising with greater freedom our "editorial privilege of omission," we now repeat yet more emphatically. Icon well remarks that we are much in the power of our contributors. Indeed we are more so than even he supposes.

An article on the Notes and Emendations which lately appeared in our columns concluded, in its original form, with an argument against their genuineness, based on the use of a word unknown to Shakspeare and his cotemporaries. This appeared to us somewhat extraordinary, and a reference to Richardson's excellent Dictionary proved that our correspondent was altogether wrong as to his facts. We of course omitted the passage; but we ought not to have received a statement founded on a mistake which might have been avoided by a single reference to so common a book.

But there is another gentleman who, although he has never whispered a remonstrance to us upon the subject, has even more grounds of complaint than Mr. Singer, for the treatment which he has received in our columns; we mean our valued friend and contributor Mr. Collier, who we feel has received some injustice in our pages. But the fact is that, holding, as we do unchanged, the opinion which we originally expressed of the great value of the Notes and Emendations—knowing Mr. Collier's character to be above suspicion—and believing that the result of all the discussions to which the Notes and Emendations have given rise, will eventually be to satisfy the world of their great value,—we have not looked so strictly as we ought to have done, and as we shall do in future, to the tone in which they have been discussed in "N. & Q."

And here let us take the opportunity of offering a few suggestions which we think worthy of being borne in mind in all discussions on the text of Shakspeare, whether the object under consideration be what Shakspeare actually wrote, or what Shakspeare really meant by what he did write.

First, as to this latter point. Some years ago a distinguished scholar, when engaged in translating Göthe's Faust, came to a passage involved in considerable obscurity, and which he found was interpreted very differently by different admirers of the poem. Unable, under these circumstances, to procure any satisfactory solution of the poet's meaning, the translator applied to Göthe himself, and received from him the candid reply which we think it far from improbable that Shakspeare himself might give with reference to many passages in his own writings,—"That he was very sorry he could not assist him, but he really did not know exactly what he meant when he wrote it." We doubt not some of our contributors could supply us with many similar avowals.