There is not the smallest shadow of probability for supposing these verses, or any of the other MS. annotations which occur in the volume, to be in the handwriting of Mary Queen of Scots. She wrote a large and not by any means a scholarlike hand, which is very well known; whereas these verses and the other annotations, are in a small and crampt scholarlike hand of the sixteenth century, as unlike the handwriting of Mary as any that can be imagined. In fact I was not aware, until I read C.'s letter in "NOTES AND QUERIES," that anybody had ever supposed it to be hers.
The note recording the donation of this book by James I. to Bishop Hall, occurs fol. xc. It is in a large schoolboylike hand, and is correctly quoted by C.
The book contains numerous woodcuts, which have no discoverable relation to the text, and are inserted merely to mark the commencement of the books, or different pieces of which the volume consists. Many of these are repeated several times.
The ornamental letter to which C. refers is the letter O, the first in the book. The grotesque character of it noticed by C. would not be easily observed except it were specially pointed out. C. may be assured that it was not particularly pointed out to Her Majesty when she did us the honour of inspecting this and some other literary treasures of our library in 1849.
JAMES H. TODD.
Trinity Coll. Dublin.
STANZAS IN CHILDE HAROLD.
(Vol. iv., pp. 223. 285. 323.)
I trust that a few words more will not be deemed overmuch in pointing out what I think will be found to be the source of T. W.'s difficulty. We need not go to French or German translators, because it is reasonable to suppose that where any sense can be made out of the text as it stands, the last thing a foreigner would do would be to complete an elliptical expression. I agree with MR. COLLINS, who says the expression "is very good sense;" and from his adding "much more Byronic," I expect he will agree with me in adding also, "but very bad taste." T. W. seems to have felt this; and nothing can be more conclusive than his criticism upon this point. I trust that there are few men of taste who have not as utter an abhorrence of tyranny as Lord Byron; but I think that, strongly as men of genius may be supposed to feel, few would have lugged in the tyrants on such an occasion; as it seems to me it was just in the nature of the noble poet, with or without cause, to do. What Byron says is perfectly true; it is simply out of place: nevertheless, as the text stands, it is said with force. But adopt T. W.'s variation, and can a flatter truism be conceived? And, after all, the objection not removed; for the allusion would be equally out of place: unless, indeed, your correspondent could make out of the text that
"Thy waters wasted them while they were free,"
And wasted them, afterwards, during their slavery,