PICTURE OF "VIRGIN AND CHILD."-I should be glad if any of your readers could give me any information about a picture evidently of a Byzantine character, subject "Virgin and Child," size 13 in. by 11 in. Panel strapped and much worm eaten. About midway on the back is a book-plate of the Earls of Carysfort, with motto, "Manus hæc inimica tyrannis." Lower down is a seal about the size of a shilling, black wax giving a coronet over the letters "P. T." Upon one part of the back is the number "82," and in another are two words which look as much like "claret chamber" as anything else. Query, was this picture one of those sold "by Christie at his great room, King Street, last Saturday" (see Globe, Jan. 16, 1828), and where could I get a description or a history of it? G. S. DEAL. POT OF LILIES.-Over the porches of St. Mary's churches at Huntingdon, Brampton, and Godmanchester, there is a pot of lilies carved in stone-an emblem, I presume, of the Virgin. Can any one cite other instances of this decoration, and is it a well-known architectural device? ALFRED GATTY, D.D. PRAYER-BOOK QUERY.-In the First Epistle of St. John, ch. v. ver. 12 (Authorised Version, Eng. Bible), the following words occur: "He that hath not the Son oF GOD, hath not life"; while in the Prayer-books and Church-services published at both the University Presses, the two words "of God" are omitted in the Epistle appointed for the first Sunday after Easter. Can you or any of your readers explain this most NEMO. extraordinary error of omission? [The words "of God" appear in the Prayer-books of 1549, 1552, 1559, and 1604. In the Book of Common Prayer, however, of 1636, in which the corrections were made, and which, thus corrected, constitutes that now in use, there is this direction in the margin at the commencement of the Collects, Epistles, &c.-"the Epistles and Gospels are all to be corrected after the last translation." That last translation was what is known as King James's Bible printed in 1611, of which there are said to have been two issues in that year. In neither edition are there the words "of God." We may add the fact that in the MS. Prayer-book attached to the Act of Uniformity those words were inserted, but struck out by those to whom the charge of testing its accuracy was entrusted.] SIR THOMAS PRESTWICH.-Can any of your Lancashire readers direct me to particulars of the life of Sir Thomas Prestwich, an antiquary of the latter part of the seventeenth century, who lived at Hulme Hall, near Manchester, and who was, I believe, the last of his family? DICK. [Sir Thomas Prestwich of Hulme, near Manchester, was made one of the Commissioners of Array in 1642; served in Cheshire during the Civil Wars (1644) under Sir Thomas Aston; and created a baronet in 1644. In 1648 he assisted Sir Marmaduke Langdale in settling the terms on which the English would co-operate with the 800l. to provide four hundred pairs of pistols. The PrestScots under the Duke of Hamilton, and became bound in wich family, which originally possessed one of the largest estates in Lancashire, was by loans to Charles I., repeated sequestrations, &c., nearly reduced to a state of ruin. Hulme Hall was the manor house of Ralph de Prestwich in 1434, and continued in his descendants until the manor was sold by Sir Thomas Prestwich, the second baronet, to Sir Edward Mosley, Bart., in 1660, the sale being confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1673. For some account of this family, consult Prestwich's Respublica, p. 152; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ix. 23; and Gent. Mag., lxv. 879, 967; for pedigrees, Harl. MSS., 1437, p. 39; 1468, p. 14; 1549, p. 87; 2086, p. 12; 6159, p. 62; and the Royalist Composition Papers in the Public Record Office, First Series, li. 623, 625; Second Series, xxvii. 145.] SHAKESPEARE, ANNOTATED QUARTO.-In Pope's preface to Shakespeare, speaking of the quartos, he says: "I have seen one in particular (which seems to have belonged to the play-house, by having the parts divided by lines, and the actors' names in the margin) where several of those very passages (mean conceits and ribald ries) were added in a written hand, which since are to be found in the folio." SUPPORTERS.-When were supporters first adopted by kings and nobles as a part of their armorial bearings? What is the earliest instance on record of an English earl adopting them as part of his armorial bearings? What is the earliest sketch or drawing of such now existing in the British Museum? What are the best books where the learning can be found upon the subject? When did the Tichborne family first use supporters, and by what right? Does the right appertain to every male descendant of the family, or only to the baronet? M. T. WM. THOMAS'S "HISTORIE OF ITALIE."-Can any of your readers give me information concerning a book entitled "The Historie of Italie, a boke excedyng profitable to be redde: because it intreateth of the astate of many and divers Commonweales, how thei have ben & now be London. In the governed. Anno Domini M.DXLIX. house of Thomas Berthelet."* It was suppressed and burnt by the common hangman, but a reprint was subsequently made in 1561. The original edition is very rare. "W. Thomas (says Holinshed), who wrote the Historie of Italie and other things verie eloquentlie, was hanged and quartered at Tyburn, 18 May, 1554, for conspiring to murther Q. Mary." He had been tutor to Edward VI., and some of his letters are preserved by Strype. Was the original edition burnt by order of a proclamation, or a judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, or under what other process? W. H. HART. VISITOR, VISITEE.-In parlance legal and often in ordinary conversation we have the terms lessor, lessee, appointor, appointee, grantor, grantee. In these days of telegrams and post cards, would the innovation visitee (as relative to visitor) be out of place? Words, time, and ink, would be THOMAS TULLY, JUN. the salvation. Replies. A LETTER OF EDWARD IV. (4th S. vii. 229, 312, 417.) I am happy to be able to announce that Mr. Addington, the purchaser of this interesting document, has been good enough to comply with my suggestion, and has lent the MS. for a short time to Mr. Bond of the British Museum, in order that it may be submitted to a careful examination and compared with other letters bearing the signatures of the Earls of March and Rutland. From the remarks already made in your columns, as well as from communications I have received upon the subject privately, some of your readers will doubtless be interested in the result of this inspection. therefore make no apology for troubling you with the following observations: I The body of the letter and the address are in a clear Italian hand, which no one can reasonably doubt to be of the fifteenth century. The subscription-by which I mean the words below the date, but above the signatures-is also in an Italian hand, but different. The two signatures, "E. March" and "E. Rutlond," are certainly quite distinct in character, and have all the appearance of having been written by two different hands; and finally, the endorsement is in a different hand from any of the others. We have, [* This work is noticed in "N. & Q." 3rd S. i. 291.ED.] therefore, no less than five handwritings in this single letter. Now of course we may dismiss at once as utterly out of the question the supposition that all these five handwritings are forgeries; and, in fact, as we have said before, the body of the document is beyond suspicion. But the body of the document, it will be remembered, has, partly at least, a look of having been written in the name of King Henry VI., while the signatures are those of the Earls of March and Rutland. The question, then, is, whether the subscription and signatures, or even the signatures alone, could have been forged. The latter supposition is, of course, the more credible of the two, as it must certainly be easier to fabricate successfully two short signatures than a subscription containing no less than thirty words. Indeed, if the subscription be a forgery, it is certainly one of the most skilful that was ever made. To my eyes, at least, it bears all the marks of genuine fifteenth-century writing, and I believe those who have examined it most critically admit that there is nothing in the appearance of the writing to which they can take exception. With regard to the signatures, it will, perhaps, be as well that we should in the first place take note of such other specimens as are extant, either of Edward as Earl of March, or of his brother the Earl of Rutland. They are very few in number; but it is remarkable that there are two letters in the Cottonian Collection, each of which bears the signatures of both princes together, like the letter now under consideration. These two letters are both addressed to the Duke of York, the father of the writers, who is styled Protector of England; and their date must certainly be some years earlier than 1460, the year in which the present letter was written. The first, which is contained in the Cottonian MS. Vespasian F. xiii. f. 35, is dated Ludlow, June 3, and must, I think, be of the year 1454, when the elder brother was only twelve and the younger eleven years of age. The writers acknowledge the receipt of a letter from their father dated at York, May 29, showing his "victorious speed against his enemies." At first sight this expression might seem to refer to the battle of St. Alban's, which was fought on May 22, 1455; but there are two reasons which make it impossible to attribute the letter to that year. In the first place, the Duke of York had been dismissed from his protectorship in the beginning of the year 1455, and was only restored to it in November. Secondly, he could not possibly have gone to York just after the battle of St. Alban's, for in a letter written shortly after Corpus Christi Even (June 5) in that year, it is stated that he was removing next day to Ware. (See Paston Letters, i. 104.) The other letter, which is in MS. Vespasian F. iii., f. 13, and which is printed in Ellis's Letters, First Ser. i. 9), was evidently written about the same period. The handwriting of the two boys in both these letters (in one of which they assure their father they are getting on well with their learning) is quite in character with the ages above stated. It is perpendicular, heavy, and schoolboyish. Nevertheless each had a style of writing perfectly distinct from that of the other. Unfortunately we have no other specimens of the signature of the Earl of Rutland by which we might trace the subsequent development of his handwriting. The signature in this letter to the Duke of Milan certainly differs very considerably from that in the two Cottonian specimens ; but not more, I should be inclined to say, than the signature of a lad of seventeen might fairly be expected to differ from his signature at eleven years old. Of his brother Edward's signatures as Earl of March we have, however, at least three specimens later than the two of the year 1454. In January 1456, though not quite fourteen years of age, he appears to have been present with his father at a sitting of the Privy Council, and to have attached his signature, among those of the other lords, to a warrant. This document is in Vespasian F. xiii. f. 36. Here he signs simply with his Christian name "Eduarde," and no more. The writing is still decidedly boyish, but a degree bolder than in the two former specimens. The initial "E" of the name is a small letter, not a capital, the "r" long and perpendicular, and the whole writing exceedingly plain. After this we have two specimens signed "E. March," both belonging to the month of August, 1460, and therefore only four months earlier than the letter to the Duke of Milan. The first of these is in the Cottonian MS. Cleopatra, F. v. f. 197, the second in Vespasian, F. xiii. f. 32. In both these signatures we recognise a handwriting that is completely formed and business-like, very different from the bold, but still rather unpractised scrawl in which he had written the name "Eduarde" four years earlier. In these instances the initial "E" and the "M" of "March" are run together, the back of the E being formed by the first stroke of the letter M. Every letter of the name, especially the a and the r, is formed with characteristic curves; the final his crossed through both at the top and bottom; and after the name there is a peculiar flourish. These characteristics are identical in both the August examples, and the remarkable correspondence between the two, even in the form and contour of the letters, is a proof how steady the handwriting of Edward had become already in his nineteenth year. Now the signature "E. March" in the letter to the Duke of Milan corresponds exactly with the two examples just mentioned in all their pecu liarities. The only differences between it and them are that the strokes are not quite so round, and the pen used seems to have been a little scratchy. The writing, nevertheless, has a look of freedom about it which, considering its fidelity to the true type of Edward's signatures in this year, could not easily, I should think, be attained by a mere imitator. On the whole I must own that I, for my part, am fairly satisfied of the genuineness of both the signatures in this letter to the Duke of Milan; and, the signatures being admitted as genuine, there can be no ground for impugning any other part of the document. This point, then, being regarded as settled, it follows, I think, that there is an error in Hall's statement that the Earl of Rutland left London with his father on December 2. Both he and his brother Edward were in London on the 10th, the day on which their letter to the Duke of Milan is dated; very soon after which the younger brother must have followed his father into the North, and the elder must have gone to the Marches of Wales. JAMES GAIRDNER. P.S.-I may add that unless fac-similes of one of the August signatures have been published— a point on which I am rather doubtful—a forger's task must have been one of peculiar difficulty. For it must be observed that these two signatures resembling that in the letter to the Duke of Milan, are the only ones as yet known to be extant at all and they are both found in MSS. which it has been the invariable rule in the British Museum not to allow any one to see in the public reading-room. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS' IMPRISONMENTS. (2nd S. viii. 249; 4th S. vii. 451, 526.) W. D. may rest assured that Queen Mary's chamber in Hardwick Hall is altogether a myth. The bed, tapestry, &c., may have been brought from Chatsworth and Sheffield, and so the arras may be the genuine work of Mary's needle and that of her ladies. When White had an interview with the queen at Tutbury in 1569 — "She sayd that all the day she wrought with hir nydill, and that the diversitie of the colors made the worke seme lesse tedious, and contynued so long at it till veray payn made hir to give over." The present Hardwick Hall appears to have been built betwixt the years 1590 and 1599. Over the chimney-piece in the dining-room is the date 1597, and over the door of "Queen Mary's room "that of 1599. As the queen met her death in Feb. 1587, she could not have inhabited this chamber. The older hall, in which the Countess of Shrewsbury was born and reared, and some ruins of which still remain, is traditionally said to have been one of Mary's prison houses; but will any one show proof of this ? Mr. Hunter's paper, read before the Society of Antiquaries, June 18, 1846 (vide Archæologia, xxxii. 72), denies that she was ever taken to Hardwick, and no letter of hers as yet produced, I believe, is dated from that place. Prince Labanoff's collection of her letters gives none dated from Hardwick, but looking over a list of his collection shows me that my brief statement in "N. & Q." (4th S. vii. 451) requires modification. On her way from Bolton to Tutbury in 1569, Mary rested and wrote from Ripon on Jan. 27; on Jan. 28 she wrote from Pontefract, and on the 30th from Rotherham. On the following April 18 she was at Winfield. It was in 1572, not 1571, that she was at Sheffield Manour whilst her apartments were cleansed. It appears also from the dates of her correspondence that she was several times shifted to the manour from the castle of Sheffield, probably for the whitewasher's operations. In Aug. 1578 and in June 1579 she wrote from Chatsworth, and on Aug. 10 of this year she was at Buxton; on July 10, 1581, she was at Chatsworth. To transfer her for a short period from the castle in the town of Sheffield to the manour in the adjoining park would be easily accomplished, and without much fear of interruption from her ever-watchful partisans. But to convey her over the still wild, uninhabited, and hilly moorland district lying between Sheffield and Chatsworth or Buxton, where even now the rescue of a prisoner would be feasible, must always have been an anxious task for her noble gaoler, the journey being performed on horseback. A correspondent (OXONIENSIS) in Sept. 1859 asked where and how long were the separate imprisonments of Mary in England, and does not seem to have been answered at that time. ALFRED GATTY, D.D. "THE MORE I LEARN, THE LESS I SEEM TO KNOW." Herauf, herab und quer und krumm, "I have now, alas, by zealous exertion, thoroughly studied philosophy, jurisprudence, and medicine, and, to my sorrow, theology too. Here I stand, poor fool that I am, just as wise as before. I am called Master, aye, and Doctor, and have now for ten years been leading my pupils about-up and down, crossways and crookedways-by the nose; and see that we can know nothing." See also the commencement of the Histoire d'un bon Bramin by Voltaire : "Le bramin me dit un jour: Je voudrais n'être jamais né. Je lui demandai pourquoi. Il me répondit: J'étudie depuis quarante ans; ce sont quarante années de perdues; j'enseigne les autres, et j'ignore tout.” With the foregoing passages may be compared the sentiment of a fine old author :"Yet all that I have learn'd (huge toyles now past), By long experience, and in famous schooles, Is but to know my ignorance at last. Who think themselves most wise are greatest fooles." Recreations with the Muses. By William Earl of Sterline. Lond. fol. 1637, p. 7. It is hardly likely that Goethe, among his English studies, had become acquainted with the "Foure Monarchicke Tragedies" of this writer. They are full of fine passages-fine both in sentiment and expression-and tinged frequently by a cynical melancholy that reminds the reader strongly of the soliloquies of the German student. Such, for instance, as the following:"The minde (which alwaies at some new things aymes) To get for what it longs no travell spares; And lothing what it hath of better dreames, Which (when enjoy'd) doth procreate but cares." The Tragedy of Cræsus. Compare with this the fine passage · "O glücklich! wer noch hoffen kann -- Aus diesem Meer des Irrthums aufzutauchen. But, however this may be, a greater even than Goethe is supposed to have been indebted to these "Monarchicke Tragedies," which, says George GOETHE, SHAKESPEARE, AND WILLIAM, EARL OF Chalmers, "were entitled to the honour of King James's acceptance, and the higher honour of Shakespeare's adoption." Porson thought that he had discovered the original of the well-known passage in The Tempest "The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces," &c., in some lines in Darius "If Fortune's dark ecclipse cloud glories light, Not scepters, no, but reeds, which (rais'd up) break, Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, Those stately courts, those skie-encountring walls Readers will form their own opinion as to this point of literary resemblance. The very question, it will be remembered, was discussed by Thomas Moore and Sir James Mackintosh at a literary dinner at Longman's, and the conclusion was arrived at that "the plagiarism is so remote that Shakspeare need not even have seen it." (Moore's Life and Diary, ii. 313.) supposed husband's sleeve. To those who are, however, dissatisfied with it, MR. KEIGHTLEY'S rule may indicate an emendation better than the notes, the compositor might have made it noues, one which he proposes. If the original word was and the reader would probably change this to moues. "She notes me for her theme "would be intelligible enough: she takes notice of me as the subject of her reproaches. In Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Sc. 1— "Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wand lipwe have surely the same word as in Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2: "All his visage wann'd," i. e. turned The Tragedy of Darius has certainly the prece-wan or pale. MR. KEIGHTLEY might have recoldence in point of time. It was first published in lected that an Eastern beauty's lip is not " tanned," 1603, The Tempest some ten years later. whatever impression cheek or chin may receive from "Phoebus' amorous pinches." Sir Walter Scott possessed the Recreations with the Muses (folio, 1637), and wrote his genealogy on the fly-leaf, tracing his descent in direct line through the Swintons of Swinton, to William Alexander, Earl of Sterling, the poet and dramatist. (Lockhart's Life of Scott, chap. i.) WILLIAM BATES, B.A. "A mother and a mistress and a friend." Helena is dwelling on the "thousand loves" which surround the life of Bertram, and she naturally places that of his mother first on the list, as having come most immediately under her own observation. To alter mother into lover would leave a feeble tautology, the word mistress following immediately. It is true that in the following lines (unreasonably set down as spurious by Warburton) she dwells on the thoughts suggested by this latter word only, because throughout the sad question is in her mind, with all these loves, why should he think of my unspoken love? And in this connection the word mother has a touching significance with regard to Helena's own orphanhood. In Comedy of Errors, Act II. Sc. 2 "To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme"what meaning are we to attach to MR. KEIGHTLEY'S proposed alteration, loves for moves? There had been nothing amatory about Adriana's speech. The text may stand well enough in reference to Adriana's action, who has "fastened on" her The curious phrase in Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 4— "The swaggering upspring reels” is elucidated in a communication to "N. & Q." 3rd S. xii. 3, by DR. CARTWRIGHT, who cites DR. ELZE in support of the appropriateness of the epithet swaggering. This word MR. KEIGHTLEY would change to staggering, which in combination with the word reels would furnish another instance of tautology. C. G. PROWETT. Garrick Club. ENGLISH BIBLES temp. JAMES I. In your reply to MR. GRIFFITHS's query, you mention under 1611-13, folio, 4to, 8vo, and 12mo editions of the Authorised Version. I cannot help thinking there is some error here. Will you allow me to enumerate the editiones principes of each size of this version? 1. Folio, 1611.-There were two issues of this edition: the first is readily distinguished, according to MR. FRY, by the omission of the line "Appointed to be read in Churches," from the N. T. title: Genesis x. 16, has Emorite for Amorite; there is a repetition in Exodus xiv. 10; the headline of 2 Chronicles 29 is 39. The second issue of has these errors corrected, but has some of its own: thus S. Mat. xxvi. 36 has Judas for Jesus. Lea Wilson, No. 112: but his account is not to be depended on. this year 2. There is a New Testament of 1611, in 12mo. Only one copy is known. It is in the collection of Mr. Lenox, who gave 33%. 158. for it in Gardiner's sale. It was formerly in Lea Wilson's collection. See his Catalogue, No. 57, Testaments. 3. The first 4to Bible, 1612. It is in the Roman letter. Lea Wilson, No. 113. 4. The first 4to New Testament, 1612. Blackletter, long lines. Lea Wilson, No. 58. It 5. The first black-letter 4to Bible, 1613. agrees with the first folio in printing Emorite for |