In the year 1815, the University of Oxford determined to reprint Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, and to add to it that of the Irish rebellion; but as it was suspected by one of the delegates of the press, that the edition from which they were printing the "Irish Rebellion" was spurious, as it attributed the origin of the rebellion to the Protestants instead of the Catholics; a much earlier copy was procured from Dublin, through the chaplain of the then Lord Lieutenant, which reversed the accusation which was contained in the copy from which the University had been about to print.
J. T. A.
September 30. 1850.
Macaulay's Country Squire.—I suppose I may take it for granted that all the world has long since been made merry by Mr. Macaulay's description of "the country squire on a visit to London in 1685." (History of England, vol. i. p. 369.)
I am not aware that Steele's description of a country gentleman under similar circumstances has ever been referred to; it is certainly far from being as graphic as Mr. Macaulay's; but the one may at all events serve to illustrate the other, and to prove that Urbs had not made any very great progress in urbanity between 1685 and 1712.
"If a country gentleman appears a little curious in observing the edifices, signs, clocks, coaches, and dials, it is not to be imagined how the polite rabble of this town, who are acquainted with these objects, ridicule his rusticity. I have known a fellow with a burden on his head steal a hand down from his load, and slily twirl the cock of a squire's hat behind him; and while the offended person is swearing or out of countenance, all the wag-wits in the highway are grinning in applause of the ingenious rogue that gave him the tip, and the folly of him who had not eyes all round his head to prevent receiving it."—Spectator, No. 354.
C. Forbes.
October 11.
Miching Mallecho.—The Writer of the review of Urquhart's Travels in the Quart. Rev. for March 1850, who is, in all probability, identical with the author of the Handbook of Spain, felicitously suggests that Miching Mallecho is a mere misprint for the Spanish words Mucho Malhecho, much mischief: Hamlet, iii. 2. Imagining that I had seen this ingenious conjecture somewhere in print before, I referred to, and was disappointed when I found it not in Knight's Shakspeare (library ed.). Recently, in looking over Dr. Maginn's admirable dissections of Dr. Farmer's Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare, I discovered what I was in search of, and beg to present it to the notice of your readers.
"That the text is corrupt, I am sure; and I think Dr. Farmer's substitution of mimicking malhecco, a most unlucky attempt at emendation. In the old copies it is munching malicho, in which we find traces of the true reading, mucho malhecho, much mischief.
"'Marry, mucho malhécho—it means mischief.'"—Fraser's Magazine, Dec. 1839, p. 654.