13½d. was not tendered to him for making, nor do I think that any threehalfpences are collected for payment. After the patient had left the shop, the silversmith informed me that such requests were of frequent occurrence, and that he supplied the patients with thick silver rings, but never took the trouble to manufacture them from the sixpences.

A similar superstition supposes that the sole of the left shoe of a person of the same age, but opposite sex, to the patient, reduced to ashes is a cure for St. Anthony's fire. I have seen it applied with success, but suppose its efficacy is due to some astringent principle in the ashes.

E. G. R.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE.

On Two Passages in Shakspeare.—Taking up a day or two since a Number of "N. & Q.," my attention was drawn to a new attempt to give a solution of the difficulty which has been the torment of commentators in the following passage from the Third Act of Romeo and Juliet:

"Runaways'" being a manifest absurdity, the recent editors have substituted "unawares," an uncouth alteration, which, though it has a glimmering of sense, appears to me almost as absurd as the word it supplies. In this dilemma your correspondent Mr. Singer ingeniously suggests the true reading to be,—

No doubt this is a felicitous emendation, though I think it may be fairly objected that a rumourer, being one who deals in what he hears, as opposed to an observer, who reports what he sees, there is a certain inappropriateness in speaking of a rumourer's eyes. Be this as it may, I beg to suggest another reading, which has the merit of having spontaneously occurred to me on seeing the word "runaways'" in your correspondent's paper, as if obviously suggested by the combination of letters in that word. I propose that the passage should be read thus:

A subsequent reference to Juliet's speech has left no doubt in my mind that this is the true reading, and so obviously so, as to make it a wonder that it should have been overlooked. She first asks the "fiery-footed steeds" to bring in "cloudy night," then night to close her curtain (that day's eyes may wink), that darkness may come, under cover of which Romeo may hasten to her. In the next two lines she shows why this darkness is propitious, and then, using an unwonted epithet, invokes night to give her the opportunity of darkness:

The peculiar and unusual epithet "civil," here applied to night, at once assured me of the accuracy of the proposed reading, it having evidently suggested itself as the antithesis of "rude" just before applied to day; the civil, accommodating, concealing night being thus contrasted with the unaccommodating, revealing day. It is to be remarked, moreover, that as this epithet civil is, through its ordinary signification, brought into connexion with what precedes it, so is it, through its unusual meaning of grave, brought into connexion with what follows, it thus furnishing that equivocation of sense of which our great dramatist is so fond, rarely missing an opportunity of "paltering with us in a double sense."

I think, therefore, I may venture to offer you the proposed emendation as rigorously fulfilling all the requirements of the text, while at the same time it necessitates a very trifling literal disturbance of the old reading, since by the simple change of the letters naw into ded, we convert "runaways'" into "rude day's," of which it was a very easy misprint.

Having offered you an emendation of my own, I cannot miss the opportunity of sending you

another, for which I am indebted to a critical student of Shakspeare, my friend Mr. W. R. Grove, the Queen's Counsel. In All's Well that ends Well, the third scene of the Second Act opens with the following speech from Lafeu:

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves in a seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."

On reading this passage as thus printed, it will be seen that the two sentences of which it is composed are in direct contradiction to each other; the first asserting that we have philosophers who give a causeless and supernatural character to things ordinary and familiar: the second stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after "familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance. It should be pointed thus:

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless."

It is singular that none of the editors should have noticed this defect, which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple change, that very happily illustrates the importance of correct punctuation.

R. H. C.

Shakspeare's Skull.—As your publication has been the medium of many valuable comments upon Shakspeare, and interesting matter connected with him, I am induced to solicit information, if you will allow me, on the following subject. I have the Works of Shakspeare, which being in one volume 8vo., I value as being more portable than any other edition. It was published by Sherwood without any date affixed, but probably about 1825. There is a memoir prefixed by Wm. Harvey, Esq., in which, p. xiii., it is stated that while a vault was being made close to Shakspeare's, when Dr. Davenport was rector, a young man perceiving the tomb of Shakspeare open, introduced himself so far within the vault that he could have brought away the skull, but he was deterred from doing so by the anathema inscribed on the monument, of—

"Curs'd be he that moves my bones."

This is given upon the authority of Dr. Nathan Drake's work on Shakspeare, in two vols. 4to. Now in this work much is given which is copied into the memoir, but I do not there find this anecdote, and perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." may supply this deficiency, and state where I may find it. I may be allowed to state, that Pope's skull was similarly stolen and another substituted.

I annex Wheler's remark that no violation of the grave had, up to the time of his work, taken place.

"Through a lapse of nearly two hundred years have his ashes remained