the foregoing extract, the meaning clearly is, "as which token of duty;" and it is the performance of this "token of duty" which Katharine hopes may "do him ease." The imitator, as usual, has caught something of the words of the original which he has laboured to reproduce at a most unusual sacrifice of grammar and sense; the following passage appearing to represent that the wives, by laying their hands under their husbands' feet—no reference being made to the act as a token of duty—in some unexplained manner, "might procure them ease."

One more instance, and I have done. Shakspeare has imparted a dashing humorous character to this play, exemplified, among other peculiarities, by such rhyming of following words as—

I quote these to show that the habit was Shakspeare's. In Act I. Sc. 1. occurs the passage—"that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her." The sequence here is perfectly natural: but observe the change: in Ferando's first interview with Kate, he says,—

In the last scene, Petruchio says,—

Ferando has it thus:—

Is it not evident that Shakespeare chose the word "sped" as a rhyme to "bed," and that the imitator, in endeavouring to recollect the jingle, has not only spoiled the rhyme, but missed the fact that all "three" were "married," notwithstanding that "two" were "sped"?

It is not in the nature of such things that instances should be either numerous or very glaring; but it will be perceived that in all of the foregoing, the purpose, and sometimes even the meaning, is intelligible only in the form in which we find it in Shakespeare. I have not urged all that I might, even in this branch of the question; but respect for your space makes me pause. In conclusion, I will merely state, that I have no doubt myself of the author of the Taming of a Shrew having been Marlowe; and that, if in some scenes it appear to fall short of what we might have expected from such a writer, such inferiority arises from the fact of its being an imitation, and probably required at a short notice. At the same time, though I do not believe Shakspeare's play to contain a line of any other writer, I think it extremely probable that we have it only in a revised form, and that, consequently, the play which Marlow imitated might not necessarily have been that fund of life and humour that we find it now.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

St. John's Wood, March 19. 1850.

PROVERBIAL SAYINGS AND THEIR ORIGINS—PLAGIARISMS AND PARALLEL PASSAGES.

Brunck, Poëtæ Gnomici, p. 231., quoted by Gibbon, Decl. and Fall (Milman. Lond. 1838. 8vo.), xii. 355. (note 65.)

These words are Barnes's translation of the following fragment of Euripides, which is the 25th in Barnes' ed. (see Gent.'s Mag., July, 1847, p. 19, note):—

This, or a similar passage, may have been employed proverbially in the time of Sophocles. See l. 632. et seq. of the Antigone (ed. Johnson. Londini. 1758. 8vo.); on which passage there is the following scholium:—

Respecting the lines referred to in the Chorus, Dr. Donaldson makes the following remarks, in his critical edition of the Antigone, published in 1848:—

"The parallel passages for this adage are fully given by Ruhnken on Velleius Paterculus, ii. 57. (265, 256.), and by Wyttenbach on Plutarch, De Audiendis Poetis, p. 17. B. (pp. 190, 191.)"

Congreve's Mourning Bride, act i. sc. i. l. 1.

Rabelais, Gargantua, Liv. i. chap. 5. (vol. i. p. 136, ed. Variorum. Paris, 1823. 8vo.)

This proverb had been previously used by Amyot, and probably also by Jerome le (or de) Hangest, who was a Doctor of the Sorbonne, and adversary of Luther, and who died in 1538.—Ibid. p. 136 (note 49.).

I know not how old may be "to put the cart before the horse." Rabelais (i. 227.) has—

Rabelais (i. 229, 230.):—

Pope's Essay on Criticism, pp. 524, 525.

Ib. pp. 624, 625.

The Emperor Alexander of Russia is said to have declared himself "un accident heureux." The expression occurs in Mad. de Staël's Allemagne, § xvi.:—

"Mais quand dans un état social le bonbeur lui-même n'est, pour ainsi dire, qu'un accident heureux ... le patriotisme a peu de persévérance."

Gibbon, Decl. and Fall (Lond. 1838. 8vo.), i. 134.:—

"His (T. Antoninus Pius') reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materíals for history; which is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."

Gibbon's first volume was published in 1776, and Voltaire's Ingenii in 1767. In the latter we find—

Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 94.:—