"Cease, rude Boreas."—Can any of your correspondents tell me why the song, "Cease, rude Boreas," has been occasionally attributed to Falconer. I remember seeing this song appended to an old edition of the Shipwreck, with a prefatory remark stating that G. A. Stevens could not have written it, as the moral of the verses was of too high an order for him. Occasionally the last stanza is omitted, on account of the sentiment being somewhat questionable; though it cannot be denied that the feelings there expressed are exactly those of a sailor. In a few copies another stanza of a very different tendency is inserted in its place; and at times I have seen the commencement of the third stanza altered thus:
"Now all you at home in safety,
Shelter'd from the howling storm,
Tasting joys by heaven vouchsaf'd ye,
Of our state vain notions form."
I should wish to obtain some information regarding the authors of these alterations, and when they first took place.
Βορέας.
Pictorial Proverbs.—I have now lying open before me a small 12mo. book (binding modern) containing sixty-seven old prints (averaging in size 5¾ by 3¾ inch), but wanting a title-page. The subjects appear to be in the shape of pictorial proverbs; they are evidently very old, the distich before each plate is in Latin, which is again written in old German. The views in each background are places generally in Germany, and the names are written on the plate itself. In one only plate I discover the name "M. Merian, fe" (Qy. Matts. Merian, or his daughter, of Frankfort?); and in some few others the following mark, "
." All the plates seem done by the same person.