"ESTRIDGES" (5th S. vii. 326, 385, 458; ix. 115, 217.)-I cannot accept MR. GUY's general agreement "that the falcon is meant by Shakspere in the passage in 1 Hen. IV. iv. 1"; nor do I see the relevancy of the quotation from the Faerie Queen describing the flight of the eagle, which MR. PERRATT would array in the borrowed plumes of the ostrich.

In the first place the estridge was the recognized name for the ostrich a hundred years before Shakspere wrote this play, and for at least fifty years after, as the following extracts will show :

"The Estryge that wyll eate

An horshowe so great
In the stede of meate,

Such fervent heate

His stomake doth freat;
He can not well fly,

Nor synge tunably," &c.

John Skelton (1460-1529), Phyllyp Sparrow, 1. 478. And in his Speke, Parrot, 1. 80, we find :—

"Ic dien serveth for the erstrych fether,

Ic dien is the language of the land of Beme." This vulgar error (if it be one, and not a mere exaggeration of the fact that the ostrich is a coarse feeder) is put into Jack Cade's mouth in 2 Hen. VI., iv. 10; and Sir Thos. Browne, in seriously discussing it, is prepared, like the bird, to swallow the horseshoe, but has doubts on the digestive process. While it serves to settle what is meant by the estridge, it carries down the word to the middle of the seventeenth century :

They have keen Estridge stomachs, and well digest
Both Iron and Lead, as a Dog will a Breast
Of Mutton."

"On the Creeple Soldiers marching in Oxford," Clarastella: Occasional Poems, by Robert Heath, 1650, p. 24. 'No; the State-Errant fight, and fight to eat; Their Ostrich-stomachs make their swords their meat." John Cleveland, "The Rebel Scot," Poems, 1661, p. 35. Now for the passage itself. By dispensing with the comma which in the 4to. of 1599 and in the folio of 1623 stands after "eagles," or by moving it two words back, the sense, I contend, becomes perfectly clear, one figure growing naturally out of the preceding one :

"All furnisht, all in Armes, All plum'd like Estridges, that with the wind Bayted, like Eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in Golden Coats like Images, As full of spirit as is the month of May, And gorgeous as the Sun at Midsummer," i.e. the plumes on their helmets fluttered with the breeze, as do those of the ostrich when in running he flaps his wings, like the eagle (notably the osprey) shaking the water from his plumage after

a dip in the sea (see Cotgrave, art. "Debatis, the bating or unquiet fluttering of a hawke"). It is just possible that the "eagles" may claim the glittering golden coats of the next line, and that to the images (or pictures) belong the spirit and colour of May and Midsummer; but this would involve taking further liberties with the punctuation.

The entry of "Estrych-falcon" in Halliwell's Dictionary seems responsible for the confusion which has arisen on this subject. He calls it "a species of large falcon, mentioned in the old metrical romance of Guy of Warwick. Shakspere seems to allude to this bird in Ant. and Cleop., iii. 11."

I have only been able to find "Gerfawcon" in the printed copies of the two MS. versions of Guy of Warwick; and I observe that Halliwell describes this bird also as 66 a kind of large falcon," with a reference to p. 26 of the Abbotsford Club text. Surely this passage in Shakspere does not require the discovery of any such hybrid :—

INVENTOR OF ROLLER SKATES (5th S. viii. 507; ix. 60, 215.)-In addition to the information already given by CUTHBERT BEDE on this subject, I beg to suggest that there is another notice of "artificial" skating in England besides those recorded in these columns, to be found in the Annals of Sporting, Oct., 1823, under the head of "Skating":

"A skate has been invented which renders this amusement independent of frost. It is like the common skate, but instead of one iron it has two, with a set of small brass wheels let in between, which revolve and enable the bearer to run with great rapidity on any hard, level surface, and to perform, though with less force and nicety, all the evolutions of skating. A patent has been obtained for this invention, and it is now exhibited at the Tennis-court, in Windmill-street."

At this same place pugilistic displays, &c., had for some time been usual. JULIAN MARSHALL.

OLD RECEIPTS (5th S. viii. 145; ix. 55, 217.)Rue, unsavoury as it is, has long been considered a most virtuous herb in preventing infection, hence its use at the Old Bailey. At the trial of the Mannings, after the conviction the female prisoner in her fury seized the sprigs of it which lay on the dock, and dashed them on the floor of the court. "The smell of a Yahoo continuing very offensive, I always keep my nose well stopped with rue,

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. British Mezzotinto Portraits. Described by J. C. Smith. Part I. Adams to Faber. (H. Sotheran and J. Noseda.) THOSE who saw the fine collection of mezzotint engravings after Reynolds and Gainsborough at the Burlington House Exhibition of Old Masters this year, will at once appreciate the utility and value of this extremely well devised catalogue. At Burlington House there was no possibility of any classification beyond maintaining an agreeable balance of form and tone, regulated of course by the various conditions of size and shape. The catalogue gave as much valuable and ready information as was needed for the purposes of a cursory visit, and the preparation had been much aided by Dr. Edward Hamilton's comprehensive catalogue of the engraved works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. No less than 103 individual engravers, and mostly mezzotinters, have devoted themselves to the reproduction of the works of this great artist. Dr. Hamilton has classified his subjects according to the names of the persons represented. Mr. Chaloner Smith, on the other hand, adopts the name of the artist as his guide, noticing those portraits only on which the mezzotinto process has been employed. Mezzotinto is his principal theme. The art itself, as is well known, does not date further back than the reign of Charles II., and it suddenly reached complete mastery at the hands of John Smith in reproducing the works of Sir Godfrey Kneller. In early times engravings in this style were inelegantly termed "scrapings," and in Germany the phrase "black art " is still employed to denote it. The velvety appearance of the black produced by this process has also led to the adoption in Germany of the appropriate term " Sammet-stich," or velvet-engraving. It would appear almost impossible to comprise within four octavo volumes, according to the announcement in the prospectus, this vast number of names and their subdivisions, were it not that Mr. Chaloner Smith has adopted a clever system of abbreviations and employed types of different sizes, although producing a violent contrast. The plan of his undertaking is thus stated in his own words: "This work is intended to describe all mezzotinto portraits published in England, Ireland, and Scotland, down to the early part of the present century; not including those by engravers such as S. W. Reynolds and Charles Turner, whose principal works were produced at a more modern date." His technical definitions of "platemark," "subwidth," and "inside border" will be found useful to collectors.

His system of what he calls "handing" is far superior to that adopted in the South Kensington portrait catalogues and in the Burlington House portrait descriptions. He justly applies the terms right and left to

those of the spectator facing the picture. This obviously natural course is universally adopted in continental guides and numismatic descriptions. A short warning word excudit might have been useful. Although strictly to the unwary against applying a broad meaning to the meaning publisher or issuer of the plate, it is liable to be mistaken for engraver, and this in some cases has led into difficulties. The frontispiece to this volume, showing, side by side, what extensive changes can be made in one and the same plate, is admirably executed, on a reduced scale, by the "Photogravure" process of Messrs. for the catalogue of Mr. James Anderson Rose's fine Goupil & Co. It was used in the engraved illustrations collection, recently dispersed by Messrs. Sotheby. In those plates the minute silvery line engravings of Wierix and Beatrizet, among others, were produced with marvellous fidelity, and now we find the process equally well adapted to render the fulness and richness of mezzotinto. These prints lie flat, on the same paper as the rest of the book, and the pages are not distorted, to the prejudice of the binding, as too frequently happens in modern books devoted to galleries of art, where starched photography takes the place of reproduction by means of genuine metallic engraving.

As the remaining volumes appear, we may briefly comment on distinctive features as they occur, and for the present will only record our admiration at the earnest and thorough manner in which Mr. Smith has carried out his undertaking, not only as regards the main subjects, but down to the minutest points of detail. The labour and research to produce this result must have been immense, and the author has manifestly enjoyed the advantage of access to the choicest collections of engravings illustrating the subject. Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. Division I. Political and Personal Satires. Prepared by Frederic George Stephens, and containing many Descriptions by Edward Hawkins, late Keeper of the Antiquities. Vol. III., Parts J. and II. (Printed by Order of the Trustees.)

THOUGH in art, as in poetry, satire does not occupy the foremost place, its importance and interest are universally recognized; and nowhere more warmly than in England, the birthplace of those great masters of pictorial satire, Hogarth, Gillray, and Cruikshank. Those who would study the comic history of England at greater length than in the two volumes published by Gilbert A'Becket under that title will find it written at full in the wonderful collection of caricatures and satirical engravings preserved in the Print Room of the British Museum. But fortunately they may do it more comfortably at their own firesides, by means of the elaborate catalogue of them, of which a further portion (the third volume, in two parts) has just been published, to the great credit of all who have had part and parcel in the good work-first to the originator of it, we presume Mr. Reid, the learned and courteous head of the department; secondly to the Trustees for having fallen into the suggestion; and thirdly and especially to Mr. Frederic George Stephens, to whom, at Mr. Reid's suggestion, the preparation of the catalogue was entrusted, and who has justified to the fullest the recommendation of his chief, by the production of a catalogue valuable not only for the minute and accurate descriptions it gives of the various engravings enumerated in it, but for the vast amount of curious illustration of social, personal, and political history which he has brought to bear upon them from contemporary writers, ballads, broadsides, pamphlets, and periodicals-a body of information which could scarcely have been gathered together except by one working in the Museum itself. The parts

of the catalogue now issued contain descriptions of nearly eighteen hundred prints, published between March, 1734, and 1760; and how full these descriptions are may be judged from the fact that they occupy upwards of twelve hundred pages, and include the most complete account of the matchless works of Hogarth which has yet been given to the world. Mr. Stephens's introduction, on the political importance of artistic satire and the progress of political art in England, will be read with great interest; but that our notice may not be as long as the bulky volumes to which it refers, we will bring it to a close with an expression of our satisfaction at seeing the name of Edward Hawkins on the title-page of a book which would have delighted that good man and lover of satirical art.

Spelling Reform, from an Educational Point of View. By J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S. (Macmillan & Co.) THE distinguished President of the Chemical Society has been up the Tamar to a place which he calls Cothele-an orthography different from that employed by the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in giving an account to the British Archæological Association (Journal, vol. xxxiii. p. 1) of an estate which came into his family by the marriage of William de Edgcumbe with Hilaria de Cotehele, in 1353-and has come back dismayed to find that whereas he was himself acquainted with "twenty-seven ways of pronouncing it in accordance with the analogy of English words and names," the mode in which the name fell "from the lips of one who could be depended upon" was different from all his own modes. The only adequate remedy which our author sees for such a state of things is a Royal Commission, which Mr. Matthew Arnold would fain have established as a permanent institution, The extracts given by Mr. J. H. Gladstone from reports of foreign systems constitute a valuable feature of his book, whatever be our judgment on the views enunciated in the

text.

THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT-RACE, 1829 (ante, p. 271.) I can inform your correspondent SCULLER, upon the authority of Bell's Life, that the cutter in which the Oxford men rowed against the Cantabs in 1829 belonged to Balliol, and was built by King. The Cambridge crew used a boat by Searle. Probably Messrs. Salter, who succeeded King at Oxford, or Messrs. Searle can furnish SCULLER with dimensions, or perhaps even afford him an opportunity of inspecting the drawings made for the ships in question. My rowing recollection does not go so far back as 1829, but I remember racing boats built not long after that time, and wondrous craft they were compared to the frail and swift outriggers of the present day. There used to be a gangway fastened along the thwarts from stroke to bow, and each man walked along this gangway, oar in hand, till he reached his proper place. Racing boats were then much pinched in both fore and aft, but more so at bow's thwart than at stroke's. This made it rather hard lines for poor No. 1, for he not only had to contend against the disadvantage of keeping time and stroke with an oar shorter inboard than any of the others, and consequently very badly balanced, but he had to endure more than his fair share of scolding from the coxswain, whose great idea of "principles of rowing and steering" in those pre-scientific days seemed to be that it was at least judicious to select for his severest censure the man who was furthest off BARTHOLOMEW LANE.

from him.

HERALDIC BOOK-PLATES.-MR. HENRY PECKITT (Carlton Husthwaite, Thirsk) writes: "I am just commencing my fifth folio volume of book-plates, and shall be glad of an opportunity of exchanging duplicates or

of purchasing old plates. If any one will send me his plate for insertion I will at once acknowledge it. I have a separate collection, Foreign Ex Libris,' which I shall be glad to make additions to by purchase."

THE REV. W. W. Skeat is a candidate for the Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge. His thorough acquaintance with our language in all its stages peculiarly fits Mr. Skeat for the Chair just founded in the University by a legacy from the late Dr. Bosworth.

WE are sure our readers will be glad to have their attention drawn to the very admirable article on the late Dr. Doran, by Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, in this month's Temple Bar.

NEXT week we shall have " A Reminiscence of George Cruikshank and his Magazine," from the pen of CuтHBERT Bede.

Notices to Correspondents.

ON all communications should be written the name and

address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

FREDK. RULE. The fact was sufficiently established ante, p. 53. On this subject E. NARES HENNING (Sherborne) writes:-"There was a Mr. Beresford, of Merton College, Oxford, who was a contemporary and friend of Dr. Nares in his early days, and who was the author of The Miseries of Human Life, which came out about the same time as Thinks I to Myself, and may have led to the error. Referring to your Notices to Correspondents, ante, p. 120, I do not see how the account of the Nares family can be supplemented materially, but I shall be glad to answer, as far as I am able, any further questions that may be put." See ante, p. 275.

F. L. P.-In Murray's Handbooks, those reliable and most useful compagnons de voyage, the traveller in any country, whether Italy or elsewhere, will be sure to find

the information desired.

J. E. CUSSANS.-We shall feel much obliged if you will send a note stating, if such be the case, that some reference to the story will be found in your forthcoming History of Hertfordshire.

P. The following will probably suit your requirements: Rietstap, Armorial Général des Familles Nobles et Patriciennes de l'Europe, Amsterdam, 1875. Priced at twenty shillings in Quaritch's General Catalogue of Books, 1875-7.

Never H. A. S.-Many thanks for your letter. hesitate to write. Forward query about "Derby Officers." Your note, if possible, next week. See ante, p. 268.

H. A. W.-Your reply will appear, and a proof shall be sent. We should appreciate an original note on the missal referred to by yourself.

GEO. PRESSLY (Knockmaroon.)-The story must be nearly as old as cards themselves.

F. ROSENTHAL.-Second copy received.
H. B. C.-See ante, p. 239.

Y. N. E. (Frome) should send name and address.
ERRATUM.-P. 244, col. 1, 1. 21, for "wot " read wit.