Your able correspondent MR. S. W. SINGER, in Vol. v., p. 436., gives his positive adhesion to MR. COLLIER'S emendation of the corruption "bosom multiplied" in Coriolanus, Act III. Sc. 1. Agreeing with MR. SINGER in his opinion of the value of this emendation, there is yet an importance attached to it which I feel sure MR. COLLIER will not object to have pointed out, although doubtlessly all the argument respecting the sources of his early MS. corrections will be carefully considered in the volume he so liberally intends presenting to the Shakspeare Society. Shakspearian criticism is a field so open to varied opinions, and is a subject on which so few can be brought exactly to agree, it is a mere chance if, in addressing these few lines, I in any degree anticipate MR. COLLIER'S conclusions.

MR. COLLIER'S discovery was, perhaps, of even greater interest to myself than to others, not merely on account of its being an important evidence for the state of the text, but because I had long since had the opportunity of using a volume of precisely similar character, namely, the copy of the third folio, with numerous MS. emendations in a coeval hand, mentioned by Lowndes, p. 1646., as having some years since sold for 65l., on account of those MS. emendations. This volume contains several hundred very curious and important corrections, amongst which I may mention an entirely new reading of the difficult passage at the commencement of Measure for Measure, which carries conviction with it, and shows, what might have been reasonably expected, that that to is a misprint for a verb. There are numerous other corrections of equal importance, but I forbear at present to notice them, under the conviction it is not safe to adopt MS. corrections, unless we know on what authority they are made. It was on this account I ventured to indicate the extreme danger of adopting any of the MS. readings of MR. COLLIER'S second folio, without a most rigid examination, or until their authority was unquestionably ascertained. Now, in MR. COLLIER'S first two communications to the Athenæum there was scarcely a single example which indicated it was derived from an authentic source, but many, on the other hand, which could be well believed to be mere guess-work; and it was rather alarming to see the readiness with which they were received, threatening the loss of Shakspeare's genuine text.

A ray of light, however, at length appears in the new reading in Coriolanus. This, more than any other, gives hopes of important results; and it does something more than this: it opens a reasonable expectation that the MS. corrector had, in some cases, recollection of the passages as they were delivered in representation. Once establish a probability of this, and although many of the corrections must still be looked upon as conjectural, the volume will be of high value. The correction "bisson multitude" seems to me to be clearly one of those alterations that no conjectural ingenuity could have suggested. The volume has evidently been used for stage purposes; and it may be taken as almost beyond a doubt that that particular correction was made on authority. We can scarcely imagine that authority to be a MS. of the play, and are therefore thrown on the supposition the corrector sometimes altered from memory, and sometimes from conjecture, writing as he thought Shakspeare ought to have written, even if he did not.

It is scarcely necessary to say these observations are grounded solely on what is already before the public. The appearance of MR. COLLIER'S volume may modify their effect either one way or the other; and perhaps I am committing a literary trespass on my friend's manor in thus prematurely entering into an argument on the subject. But MR. COLLIER, with his usual liberality, has invited rather than deprecated discussion; and having expressed in print opinions grounded on his first two communications, it would be uncandid in me not to acknowledge they are in some degree modified by the very important correction since published.

J. O. HALLIWELL.

THE GRAVE-STONE OF JOE MILLER.

In consequence of the disfranchisement of St. Clement's burial-ground, Portugal Street, Clare Market, the last memorial of "honest Jo" is condemned for removal; and this being the case, I have forwarded for "N. & Q." a copy of the inscription. The epitaph written by Stephen Duck, and the stone itself, were, about the beginning of the present century, in jeopardy of obliteration, but for the compassion of Mr. Bulgen, the grave-digger; and being still in a very bad condition, Mr. Buck a few years afterwards repaired it. The following is the inscription:

"Here Lye the Remains of

honest Jo. Miller

who was