—In reply to your correspondent W. S. D. I have only to say, that my folio of 1632, with early manuscript emendations, does not contain any alteration of the line in Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. 3.:
"Peaceful commerce from dividable shores;"
which seems to me quite intelligible without any change. In the next line it reads "primogeniture" for "primogenitive", and as I apprehend rightly, the concluding syllable tive having been caught by the compositor from "prerogative," the first word in the line immediately below it.
I may take this opportunity of saying that no play in my volume is more patiently corrected than Troilus and Cressida; and that in a preceding speech by Nestor it confirms a correction by Theobald in the first line—godlike for "godly;" and by Sir Thomas Hanmer in the last line—replies for "retires." Malone printed returns after Pope, which answers the sense very well, but is hardly so probable a misprint. I am sorry to say that I thought otherwise when I published my Shakspeare; and I never can sufficiently regret that this corrected copy of the second folio did not fall into my hands until some years after I had completed that undertaking.
J. PAYNE COLLIER.
Nelson Family (Vol. v., p. 176.).
—If FRANCISCUS will refer to the pedigree of the Nelson family, in Hoare's History of Modern Wiltshire (Downton Hundred), he will find that William Nelson, who settled at Dunham parva in Norfolk, and who was the great-grandfather of the naval hero, was the son of Edmund Nelson of Scarning, in the same county, and grandson of Thomas of the same place, which Thomas, according to the same pedigree, was the son of another William, who is stated to have been a Nelson of Mandesley, the same family from which the Chuddleworth Nelsons are derived in Burke's account. I have tested the general accuracy of this pedigree, which was, I believe, compiled by Mr. Matcham from the parochial registers, but I much doubt the assumed descent from the Mandesley family, as I find Nelsons inhabiting the neighbourhood of Scarning at a period prior to the supposed migration.
G. A. C.
Maps of Africa (Vol. v., p. 174.).
—I have been intending for some time to write to you on the same subject as Paterfamiliæ, but the Christian grace of laziness has been too strong for me. Paterfamiliæ, however, has aroused me. My case is this: five years ago I commenced a map, for my own use, of the shores of the Mediterranean, and such countries as received Christianity up to the period of the Council of Nice; and I had a hope of eventually being able to carry out the plan suggested by DR. MAITLAND, in his work on the Dark Ages, and an intention of making mysterious marks to indicate the scene of any great persecution, remarkable synod, or other notable event. Well! I got on very well, by the help of Kiepert and Cramer, through Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy. Indeed, I managed to be content with all my sources, as far as Europe was concerned; but when I had advanced as far as North Africa, I came to a dead stop. There really was absolutely no map that I could find that I could trust for the site of Carthage or Alexandria. There were no "N. & Q." when I found myself at a stand-still; but I asked all the friends about me, and I verily believe that to the majority of those I spoke to it appeared an unreasonable thing for any man to expect a map of the regions I wanted described. There seemed a kind of feeling that when a man had got a map of Caffraria and Egypt, and perhaps knew where Algiers might be, he knew quite as much about Africa as he ought. Can any of your correspondents now help me? Is there no authentic French map of at least some portion of the coast; or is there any map in existence among ourselves that is not palpably a "fancy portrait?"