PEDLAR'S SONG.

From the far Lavinian shore,

I your markets come to store;

Muse not, though so far I dwell,

And my wares come here to sell;

Such is the sacred hunger for gold.

Then come to my pack,

While I cry

"What d'ye lack,

What d'ye buy?

For here it is to be sold."

I have beauty, honour, grace,

Fortune, favour, time, and place,

And what else thou would'st request,

E'en the thing thou likest best;

First, let me have but a touch of your gold.

Then, come to me, lad,

Thou shalt have

What thy dad

Never gave;

For here it is to be sold.

Madam, come, see what you lack,

I've complexions in my pack;

White and red you may have in this place,

To hide your old and wrinkled face.

First, let me have but a touch of your gold,

Then you shall seem

Like a girl of fifteen,

Although you be threescore and ten years old.

While on this subject, perhaps I may be permitted to ask whether any reader of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" can throw light on the following questionable statement made by a correspondent of the Morning Herald, of the 16th September, 1822.

"Looking over an old volume the other day, printed in 1771, I find it remarked that it was known as a tradition, that Shakspeare shut himself up all night in Westminster Abbey when he wrote the ghost scene in Hamlet."

I do not find in Wilson's Shakspeariana the title of a single "old" book printed in 1771, on the subject of Shakspere.