Eryx.
Derivation of the Word "Cash" (Vol. viii., p. 386.).—May not the word cash be connected with the Chinese coin bearing that name, which Mr. Martin, in his work on China (vol. i. p. 176.), describes as being—
"The smallest coin in the world, there being about 1000 to 1500 (cash) in a dollar, i. e. one-fifth to one-seventh of a farthing."
If I am not mistaken, the coin in question is perforated in the centre to permit numbers of the pieces being strung together, payments being made in so many strings of cash.
W. W. E. T.
66. Warwick Square, Belgravia.
Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.
The Poetical Works of John Dryden, edited by Robert Bell, Vol. I., is the first of what is proposed to be a revised and carefully annotated edition of the English Poets, which is intended to supply what the publisher believes to be an existing want, namely, "a Complete Body of English Poetry, edited throughout with judgment and integrity, and combining those features of research, typographical elegance, and economy of price, which the present age demands." Certainly, half-a-crown a volume fulfils the latter requirement in an extraordinary manner; and there can be little doubt that if the other essentials be as strictly fulfilled, and the collection embraces, as it is intended, not only the works of several poets who have been entirely omitted from previous collections, but those stores of lyrical and ballad poetry in which our literature is so preeminently rich, The Annotated Edition of the English Poets will meet with that extensive sale to which alone the publisher can look for remuneration.