2.) The hexameter verses are anonymous; perhaps one of your well-read antiquaries may be able to assign to them the author, and be disposed to annotate them. I would particularly ask when was Drake's ship broken up, and is there any date on the chair^[1] made from the wood, which is now to be seen at the Bodleian Library, Oxford?

In explanation of the last line, Tom went no less than 900 miles on one pair of soles, and on his return he hung up these remarkable shoes for a memorial in Odcombe Church, Somersetshire, where they remained till 1702.

Another "penny" sight was a trip to the top of St. Paul's. (See Dekker's Gul's Horne Book, 1609.)

A. Grayan.

THE IMPOSSIBILITIES OF OUR FOREFATHERS.

In turning over the pages of old authors, it is amusing to note how the mountains of our primitive ancestors have become mole-hills in the hands of the present generation! A few instances would, I think, be very instructive; and, to set the example, I give you the following from my own note-book.

The Overland Journey to India.—From the days of Sir John Mandeville, until a comparatively recent period, how portentous of danger, difficulty, and daring has been the "Waye to Ynde wyth the Maruelyes thereof!"

In Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue, by Brewer, London, 1657, originally published in 1607, Heursis complains that Phantases had interrupted his cogitations upon three things which had troubled his brain for many a day:

"Phant. Some great matters questionless; what were they?

Heur. The quadrature of the circle, the philosopher's stone, and the next way to the Indies.

Phant. Thou dost well to meditate on these things all at once, for they'll be found out altogether, ad græcas calendas."

Dr. Robertson's Disquisition on the Knowledge the Ancients had of India, shows that communications overland existed from a remote period; and we know that the East India Company had always a route open for their dispatches on emergent occasions; but let the reader consult the Reminiscences of Dr. Dibdin, and he will find an example of its utter uselessness when resorted to in 1776 to apprize the Home Government of hostile movements on the part of an enemy. To show, however, in a more striking light, the difference between the "overland route" a century back, and that of 1853, I turn up the Journal of Bartholomew Plaisted: London, 1757. This gentleman, who was a servant of the East India Company, tells us that he embarked at Calcutta in 1749 for England; and, after encountering many difficulties, reached Dover viâ Bussorah, Aleppo, and Marseilles in twelve months! Bearing this in mind, let the reader refer to the London daily papers of this eighth day of November, 1853, and he will find that intelligence reached the city on that afternoon of the arrival at Trieste of the Calcutta steamer, furnishing us with telegraph advices from—

Rapid as this is, and strikingly as it exemplifies the gigantic appliances of our day, the cry of Heursis in the play is still for the next, or a nearer way to India; and, besides the Ocean Mail, the magnificent sailing vessels, and the steamers of fabulous dimensions said to be building for the Cape route to perform the passage from London to Calcutta in thirty days, we are promised the electric telegraph to furnish us with news from the above-named ports in a less number of hours than days now occupied!

We have thus seen that the impetus once given, it is impossible to limit or foresee where this tendency to knit us to the farthermost parts of the world will end!

"Steam to India" was nevertheless almost stifled at its birth, and its early progress sadly fettered and retarded by those whose duty it was to have fostered and encouraged it—I mean the East India Company. From this censure of a body I would exclude some of their servants in India, and particularly a name that may be new to your readers in connexion with this subject, that of the late Mr. Charles P. Greenlaw of Calcutta, to whom I would ascribe all honour and glory as the great precursor of the movement, subsequently so triumphantly achieved by the Peninsular and Oriental Company. This gentleman, at the head of the East India Company's Marine Establishment in Bengal, brought all the enthusiasm of his character to bear upon the question of steam viâ the Red Sea; and raised such an agitation in the several Presidencies, that the slow coach in Leadenhall Street was compelled to move on, and Mr. Greenlaw lived to see his labours successful. Poor Greenlaw was as deaf as a post, and usually carried on his arm a flexible pipe, with an ivory tip and mouth-piece, through which he received the communications of his