"In eine Schlange endigt sich,
Des Rückens ungeheure Länge
Halb Wurm erschien, halb Molch und Drache."
The word in question is in this passage applicable perhaps to the serpent section, but we have seen that it is used to denote the entire living animal.
A. L.
Middle Temple.
WAS SHAKSPEARE DESCENDED FROM A LANDED PROPRIETOR?
(Vol. ix., p. 75.)
I am inclined to think that Mr. Halliwell has been misled by his old law-books, for upon looking at the principal authorities upon this point, I cannot find any such interpretation of the term inheritance as that quoted by him from Cowell. The words "the inheritance," in the passage "heretofore the inheritance of William Shakspeare, Gent., deceased," would most certainly appear to imply that Shakspeare inherited the lands as heir-at-law to some one. But, however, it must not be concluded upon this alone that the poet's father was a landed proprietor, as the inheritance could proceed from any other ancestor to whom Shakspeare was by law heir.