it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to find elsewhere. It is deserving of remark, that Burghley generally speaks of himself in the third person; and that, though the most trifling events are sometimes recorded, not a word occurs of the death of the Queen of Scots.

The two last articles in the volume are those which were printed with the proposals of the editor." One of them is a letter of some value from Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Robert Cecill, in 1601, but we notice it chiefly to point out the difference between the specimen which it affords of the plan of Mr. Murdin's work and its execution. To that letter more notes are given than, with the exception of the very first in the volume, are to be found in the whole collection; the want of which, and of an index, tend, in a greater degree than might be imagined, to lessen the utility of the editor's labours.

Having extracted the most interesting passages in the volume, we shall conclude this review of it with some proof of the attention which we are disposed to pay to such of our readers as are interested in a knowledge of obsolete words, and bibliography. For the former we have been only able to find one expression that can be considered at all peculiar, but of the use of which, Archdeacon Nares has given some examples, and the same word often occurs in " Nichols's Progresses of James the First:" hence we should scarcely have noticed it but for the circumstance in relation to which it is used. Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Thomas Smith, and Dr. Wilson, in their report of having conveyed the Duke of Norfolk to the Tower, on the 7th September, 1571, say—

"So havyng prepared a Fotecloth Nag for him, I Sir Rauf Sadler on the one side, and I Sir Thomas Smith on the other side, and I Doctor Wilson comyng immediately after, with onely our servaunts and freends accompanied, he was betwixt four and five of the clock quietly brought into the tower, without eny truble, save a nombre of idle raskall people, women, men, boyes, and girles, runnyng about him as the manner is, gasyng at hym."-P. 149.

Bibliographers will find several remarks which materially enhance the value of the books to which they refer. Sir Edward Stafford, the Queen's ambassador at Paris, in a letter to the secretary of state, August, 1584, speaking of a reply to the "True Execution of Justice in Englandi," says it was then just "come owte," and observes

The only copy of that publication in the British Museum, is entitled, “The True Execution of Justice in England for Maintenance of Public and Christian Peace against Certeine Stirrers of Sedition and Adherents to the Traytors and Enemies of the Realme without any Persecution of them for Questions of Religion as is falsely reported & published by the Fautors and Fosterers of their Treasons. Secondly Imprinted at London

"I have sent you one of them; ytt is of Doctor Allen's', or Nicholson's doing, printed, as I heere, at Reims, though they saye in Germanye, marvelous closelye kept heere from selling, not to be had for moneye as this bearer kanne tell you. I was faine to recover them, I have by some of their own faction, of whom I have divers things: he assureth me, that at this hower, there are two companies of them gon into Ingland, 200 in a companie, to land some of them westward, some by long seas. There is in my opinion no speking to have them called in for divers reasons; the one, because theie are very secretly sold, the other, beause theie will tak an advantage of ytt and mak men beleeve ytt is because we are touched to the quick; the third, because the King was willing to have ours goe abroade, he will perchance say ytt was but their defence, and therfore no reason but it should goe to.”

He concludes with this very wise observation, which we would especially commend to the notice of those meddling gentry of the present day, who are so ready to call upon the law to repress publications that offend their moral, political, or religious sentiments:

"My opinion, is both in that and other things, ytt is better to let them come, as making no account of them, or else to answer them without sayinge anye thing. For speaking against the publishing them, maketh them the more desiered, and better beleaved of a great manye."-Pp. 418, 419.

In the following month Sir Edward observes:

which as you

"I have sent your honour a book of a new may see, is printed heere, and is openly cryed abowte the streetes of this town: the direction to the Spanish agent onely is putt owte within these two dayes; at the first ytt was sold withowte putting owt.... I have also sent your honour another book closelye printed heere, and closelye ynoughe yet kept, with a pedigree, which is that which followeth the leafe which I sent you by my last.”—P. 423.

The next allusion to the subject is in December in the same year. His Excellency then informed Walsingham

"I have sent you an answer made of the secret book that was made by the faction of Guise against the King of Navarre: the autor, who did but once peruse the factious book, will not be knowne. The book ytself, wherunto ytt answereth is shewed heere onlye to the factious sort, and not left owte of sight in any body's hands, so that there is no possibilitie to come by ytt; yet both Plessis and

mense Jan: 1583 An: Reg: Eliz: 26: with some small alterations of thinges mistakeu or omitted in the transcript of the first originall." 4to. black letter, pp. 37. A curious note on this work occurs in the "Athenæ Oxonienses," by Bliss, vol. i. p. 620, where it is attributed to Lord Burghley. Humphreys doubts whether a first edition ever appeared, but Dr. Bliss determined the question in the affirmative, by describing a copy of it. It is clear, however, that neither of those writers knew of the existence of a copy of the second edition.

1 Cardinal Allen, to whom it is attributed by Anthony Wood, Athen. Oxon. by Bliss, vol. i. p. 619.

have offered fayre for ytt, and I, for my part, have sought all the wayes and meanes I could to come by ytt. This I had left but a night with me, and as you may see by the manner of the writing, made ytt be pulled in pieces and copyed by diverse persons, and so bound ytt up againe. I have let Plessis have a copye of ytt, who nere could come by ytt but by my meanes, and thanked me more for ytt, than for anything I did for them sence I came into France. I think now, by that book theie have formed the principall points of the seditious book, theie will add and mend some things in ytt. I pray you let my Lord Tresorer see ytt, to whom I have written that I have sent you, havinge but that one copye, and when you have seen ytt, I beseeche yoo retourne ytt me againe."-P. 425.

But Sir Edward Stafford was the prince of book-hunters, and merits a monument from the Roxburgh Club: on the 25th of the same month he tells Walsingham,

"I thought also fit to present you, for a new yeares gift, the frute that is come of the safe-delivery of our swelling mountaine heere, at whose hands was looked for some great matter, havinge been, since his retourne from Bloys, continually occupied from two a clock after midnight, which is his ordinarye tyme of risinge, and tyll eight a clock in the morning, being shut up in his cabinet, himselfe scriblinge, and two or three others under him, which men seem heere (consideringe his paynes and his close keeping of that which he write and made to be written) to conceave, that we should have some great matter; others feared some dangerous matter but that the fruite of all this is, this littell mouse that I send you, which when you shall have nothing else to doe, ytt may be you will tak som pleasure in the redinge of ytt."-P. 425-6.

And after describing a body-guard which the French king had created of forty-five persons, and which he called “ Taillagambi," he says,

"These have certen orders set down delivered to every one of them in a book to himself, and a verie straite order taken that none of the books should be printed more than for everie one of them one, himself one, and his two minions eache one; but yf any more of them come abroad, ytt shall go harde but I shall come by one and send ytt you."-P. 426.

On the 29th of December, Stafford informed Walsingham, "I have sent your honor a book, which is the answer to the Justice of Ingland, translated into Latin', with some addition in the begin

There is a copy of this tract in the library of the British Museum, of the title page of which the following is a correct transcript:

"Ad Persecutores Anglos pro Catholicis Domi forisque persecutionem sufferentibus; contra falsum, seditiosum, et contumeliosum Libellum, inscriptum, justitia Britannica. Vera, sincera, et modesta responsio: qua ostenditur, quàm iniustè Protestantes Angli Catholicis perduellionem objiciant ; quàm falsò negent se quendam religionis causa persequis; et quàm callidè laborent hominibus externis imponere, ne earum quæ infe

ninge. I pray you that my Lord Tresorer may see ytt, to whom I have written that I have sent ytt you, havinge yet no meanes to get anye more of them, being but this daye newly set owte, and hard to come by anye of them yet. I beseech, you Sir, that my Lord Tresorer and my Lord Howard may see the French book of the new ordre of the King's howse of these theire is none to be gotten, because the King hath expressly called them in again, because he wille alter somewhat; I have written to them therefore to excuse me, because I send them none, referring them onlye to the sight of yours."-P. 430.

This anxiety on the part of the English ministers to peruse the books printed at Paris, arose much more from political than literary motives.

POETRY

OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.

WE avail ourselves of this space to supply a few omissions in the collection of " Waverley Poetry," which, notwithstanding the declaration in the preface to the "Chronicles of the Canongate," dated on the very day of the publication of our first number, we think may still be susceptible of additions. The pages prefixed refer to the present volume.

P. 21. ROB ROY.

Justice Inglewood's song is the fifth of eleven idle stanzas, with chorus, entitled, "The Lancashire Song," and is printed in the fourth part of "Miscellany Poems, publish'd by Mr. Dryden," p. 98, 4th edit. 1716.

"In Shipton in Craven there's never a haven,

Yet many a time foul weather;

He that will not lye a fair woman by,

I wish he were hang'd in leather."

So late as the year 1570, the abbot of Crossraguel was placed upon a gridiron, to induce him to transfer certain leases to the Earl of Cassilis, who, with his brother, basted him with oil. The story, from Bannatyne, is given in the "Quarterly Review," vol. xvIII. p. 508.

runtur afflictionum causam, modum, et magnitudinem vere intelligant; cum alijs permultis ad hoc argumentum pertinentibus. Scripta primùm idiomate Anglicano, et deinde translata in Latinum-Psal. 62. Ut obstruatur os loquentium iniqua-Psal. 49. Os tuum abundavit malitia, et lingua tua concinnabat dolos." No date or place. 8vo. pp. 285.

Ante, pp. 16-39. See also the errata.

P. 27.

After the extract from Bale, we should have quoted, from the Tempest, Act ii. Sc. 2,

"Sometime like apes, that moe1 and chatter at me."

P. 28.

In the Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act ii. ad fin. old Merry thought sings the following version :

"He set her on a milk-white steed,
And himself upon a gray,

He never turn'd his face again,
But he bore her quite away."

In sparing our readers a prolix dissertation on the history of Wayland Smith, we will note the following references. The entertaining little Latin tractate," De Mirabilibus Britanniæ," printed in Hearne's Appendix to Robert of Gloucester, says:

"There is a lake. Would you have any iron domestic utensil repaired (weapons excepted), carry it to the lake, together with as much provision as you please; leave both the food and the thing which requires mending, and depart: return again, and you will find the latter repaired in the neatest manner."

The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius mentions a similar lake in Thessaly, the stronghold of ancient magic. The superstition, which was not unknown to the northern nations, is probably referred to in an extract from p. 581 of Memoirs of those who suffered in the cause of Charles I., by Lloyd, 1668, folio.

"Mr. Kenelm Digby, eldest son of Sir Kenelm, who was then imprisoned at Winchester House, slain at St. Neots in Huntingtonshire, in whose pocket was found, they say, a lock and key, with a chain of ten links, which a flea could draw, for which certainly he had been with

The Little Smith of Nottingham,

Who doth the work that no man can."

P. 39.

With a passage in THE TALISMAN the reader may compare the following lines from Fletcher's tragedy of Rollo, Duke of Normandy, Act i. Sc. 1.

Faire le moue means to pout, and not, as is stated in that page, to laugh at one. It did not equal the workmanship of Mark Scaliot, blacksmith, in the 20th of Queen Elizabeth, who made a lock of eleven pieces of iron, steel, and brass, with a pipe-key and golden chain of forty-three links, which were hung round the neck of a flca. The animal, together with his burden, weighed only one grain and a half. —B. iii. ch. 44. § 3, of Wanley's Wonders of the Little World.