The "Winter's Tale."—As Mr. Payne Collier is making inquiries as to the origin of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, perhaps he will allow me to call his attention to an oversight he has committed in his edition of Greene's Pandosto, in the series called Shakspeare's Library. In a note to the introduction, p. ii., Mr. Collier says,

"Some verbal resemblances and trifling obligations have been pointed out by the commentators in their notes to the Winter's Tale. One of the principal instances occurs in Act IV. Sc. 3., where Florizel says:

"'The gods themselves,

Humbling their deities to love, have taken

The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter

Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune

A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,

Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,

As I seem now. Their transformations

Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,

Nor in a way so chaste.'

"'This,' says Malone, 'is taken almost literally from the novel'—when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakspeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. 'The gods above disdaine not to love women beneath. Phoebus liked Daphne; Jupiter Io; and why not I then Fawnia?' The resemblance is anything but literal."

It would appear, however, that the passage cited by Mr. Collier is not the one referred to by Malone. Mr. Collier's passage is at p. 34. of his edition of the novel; the one Malone evidently had in view is at p. 40., and is as follows:—

"And yet, Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: the heavenly godes have sometime earthly thoughtes. Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bul, Apollo a shepheard: they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a man, appointed to love."

E. L. N.

Inscribed Alms-dish.—There is an alms-dish (?) in the possession of a clergyman near Rotherham, in this county, with the following inscription:—

"VREEST . GODT . ONDERHOVEDT . SYN . GEBOEDT . ANNO . 1634."

[Fear God (and?) keep his commandments.]

Having so lately been so justly reproved by your correspondent, Mr. Janus Dousa, for judging of Vondel's Lucifer by an apparently unjust review rather than by perusal,—and his beautiful chorus having so fully "established his case,"—I am rather shy of making any remarks upon this inscription: otherwise I would venture (errors excepted) to observe that there may be a mistake in the position of the last three letters of the third word.

If Mr. Dousa would kindly inform a very imperfect Dutch scholar whether this sentence is intended as a quotation from Ecclesiastes xii., 13th verse,—

or whether the third word is from the verb "onder houden,"—as looks probable, I shall be greatly obliged to him. The Bible to which I refer is dated 1644.

Being neither a scholar nor a critic, but only a lover of books and languages, I hope Mr. Dousa will accept my apology for the affront offered to his countryman, Vondel. Your publication has been a great temptation to people with a few curious books around them to set sail their little boats of inquiry or observation for the mere pleasure of seeing them float down the stream in company with others of more importance and interest. I confess myself to have been one of the injudicious number; and having made shipwreck of my credit against M. Brellet's Dictionnaire de la Langue Celtique, and also on Vondel's Lucifer, I must here apologise and promise to offend no more. If Mr. Dousa will not be appeased, I have only to add that I "send him my card." As Mrs. Malaprop said to Sir Lucius O'Trigger—

Hermes.

P. S. Can Mr. Dousa fix a positive date to my undated History of Dr. John Faustus?

Landwade Church.—It appears to me that an important service would be rendered to posterity, if a full account were taken of all the monuments and inscriptions in such deserted churches as Landwade appears to be. Such records may ere long become invaluable, and every day is hastening them to oblivion. Already hundreds of such churches, with the several monuments and inscriptions they contained, have entirely passed away. I have been making some investigation into the demolished and desecrated churches of Buckinghamshire, and am astonished at the number of monumental records which have thus perished. Thirty-one churches at least have been lost to the county, and some of them were rich in monumental memorials.

Other counties, doubtless, have equally suffered. Would it not, therefore, be well to collect accounts of the memorials they contained, so far as they can be obtained, and have them recorded in some publication, that they may be available to future historians, genealogists, and antiquaries? Is there any existing periodical suitable for the purpose?

W. Hastings Kelke.

The First Edition of the Second Book of Homilies, by Queen Elizabeth in 1563.—In the edition of the Homilies at the Oxford University press in 1822, and which from inspection, in the portion concerned, appear to be the same in the last, I find in the Advertisement, page iv. note d., that there exist four editions of the date 1563. Of these, I presume, are two in my possession, and I conclude one of them to be the first edition on the following grounds:—That one, printed by Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1563, has in the last page and a half, "Faultes escaped in the printyng," which appear to have been corrected in all the subsequent editions, and are as they stand in the subsequent and modern editions, I presume, up to the present time. But the principal proof arises from a cancelled leaf in the Homily, "Of Common Prayer and Sacraments," as it stands in the Oxford edition of 1822, p. 329-331. The passage in question, as it there stands, and stands likewise in another edition of 1563, which I have, begins within three lines of the end of the paragraph, p. 329.,—"eth, that common or public prayer," &c., and ends at p. 331. line 13.,—"ment of baptism and the Lord's supper," &c. In my presumed first edition the original passage has been dismissed, and the substituted passage, being one leaf, in a smaller type, in order plainly to contain more matter, and it is that which appears, as I suppose, in all subsequent and the present copies. It would have been a matter of some curiosity, and perhaps of some importance, to have the original cancelled passage. But every intelligent reader will perceive that the subject was one which required both delicacy and judgment. Is any copy existing which has the original passage? My copy unfortunately is imperfect, wanting three leaves; and I apprehend this is an additional instance in which the first edition of an important work has been in a manner thrown aside for its imperfection; as was the case with the real first edition of the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, and the Execution of Justice given to Burghley. As the Oxford editor wished for information upon this subject, it is hoped that the present communication may not be unacceptable to him.

J. M.

Jan. 23. 1851.