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; but this is a part of the process of taming her.  But what seems at once to disprove it is, that, according to Henslow’s account, Dekker was paid 10_l_. 10_s_. for the piece in question; as Mr. 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; and this is my excuse for trespassing so much upon your space and your readers’ patience.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

St. John’s Wood, Jan. 26. 1850.

* * * * *

NOTES FROM FLY-LEAVES, NO. 6.

In a copy of Burnet’s Telluris Theoria Sacra (in Latin), containing only the two first books (1 vol. 4to., Lond. 1689), there is the following entry in Bishop Jebb’s hand-writing:—­

“From the internal evidence, not only of additional matter in the margin of this copy, but of frequent erasures and substitutions, I was led to suppose it was the author’s copy, illustrated by his own annotations and improvements.  The supposition is, perhaps, sufficiently corroborated by the following extract from the Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 18.

“’It seems it was usual with Dr. Burnet, before he published any thing in Latin, to have two or three copies, and no more, printed off, which he kept by him for some time, in order to revise at leisure what he had written currente calamo, and sometimes, when he thought proper, to be communicated to his particular friends for their opinions, &c.’

“This copy, as it does not differ from any of the editions of 1689, was certainly not one of those proofs.  But the Doctor’s habit of annotating on his own Latin books after they were printed, renders it extremely probable that this book was a preparation for a new edition.  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.  The English version differs very materially from the Latin.  The author says in his Preface:—­