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MR. PIERPOINT (ante, p. 50), referring to statues in the Royal Exchange destroyed by the fire in 1838, says: Apparently the only statue which escaped was that of Sir Thomas Gresham. It had also escaped in the Great Fire.22

The statue of Charles II. that stood in the centre of the open area of the old Exchange was saved, and stands in the south-east angle of the ambulatory of the present building. It is said to be the only stone portrait figure carving of Grinling Gibbons. It represents the merry monarch in Roman costume. It has recently been cleansed by the Gresham committee.

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"A MS. in the Heralds' College, intitled Book of Buryalls of trewe noble Persons, N. 15, pp. 98, 99, contains a Breviate of the Interment of the Lady Katheryn Parr, Quene Dowager, &c., and goes on: Item on Wedysdaye the 5 Septembre, between 2 and 3 of the clocke in the morning, died the aforesaid Ladye, late Queene Dowager, at the Castle of Sudley in Gloucestershire, 1548, and lyeth buried in the chappell of the said Castle. Item she was ceared and chested in lead accordingly, and so remained,' &c.

"This account, being published in Rudder's New History of Gloucestershire,' raised the curiosity of some ladies, who happened to be at the Castle in May, 1782, to examine the ruined chapel, and observing a large block of alabaster fixed in the north wall of the chapel, they imagined it might be the back of a monu

ment formerly placed there. Led by this hint they opened the ground not far from the wall, they found a leaden envelope, which they opened in two places, on the face and breast, and found it to contain a human body wrapped in cerecloth. Upon removing what covered the face, they discovered the features, and particularly the eyes, and with the smell, which came principally from in perfect preservation. Alarmed at this sight the cerecloth, they ordered the ground to be thrown in immediately, without judiciously closing up the cerecloth and lead which covered the face: only observing enough of the inscription to convince them that it was the body of Queen Katherine.

and not much more than a foot from the surface

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'In May, 1784, some persons, having curiosity again to open the grave, found that the air, rain, and dirt having come to the face, it was entirely destroyed, and nothing left but the bones. It further search made. then immediately covered

was

up, and

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"Oct. 14, 1786, I went to Sudeley in company with the Hon. John Summers Cocks, and Mr. John Stripp of Ledbury, having previously obtained leave of Lord Rivers, the owner of the Castle, to examine the chapel. Upon opening the face totally decayed, the bones only remainthe ground and heaving up the lead, we found ing; the teeth, which were sound, had fallen out of their sockets. The body, I believe, is perfect, as it has never been opened; we thought it indecent to uncover it; but observing the left hand to lie at a small distance from the body, we took off the cerecloth, and found the hand and nails perfect, but of a brownish colour: the cerecloth consisted of many folds of coarse linen, dipped in wax, tar, and perhaps some gum, &c.: over this was wrapt a sheet of lead, fitted exactly close to the body.'

On the part of the lead that covered the breast was the inscription. W. C.

Perhaps the most detailed account of the close of Queen Katherine Parr's life will be found in the Rev. James Anderson's 'Ladies of the Reformation,' vol. i. The book was published about fifty-five years ago, and enjoyed for a time considerable popularity. As an author Queen Katherine Parr acquired no small reputation in her day; a full list of her writings is given in Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Authors,' vol. i.

The fate of her daughter by Lord Seymour of Sudeley is involved in some obscurity. Trustworthy historians agree in representing her as dying in infancy, or, at least, while still of tender years, thus following the authority of Strype rather than that of Miss Strickland. W. SCOTT.

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Notes on Books, &c.

Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602. Edited by W. W. Greg, Litt.D. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.)

THIS is a recent edition to that "Tudor and Stuart Library which is one of the most attractive, both in contents and appearance, of the many series with which the Oxford Press tempts the scholar.

Dr. Greg is responsible for a Bibliographical and Critical Introduction, Appendixes, and notes. These are concerned, not with aesthetic considerations (such as the comparison of Falstaff's character here and elsewhere), but with the perplexing texts of the play. We have two main authorities-the Quarto of 1602, and the Folio of 1623. Here Dr. Greg reprints the Quarto, and compares both generally and in detail the readings given by each. He discusses the views of the late H. C. Hart and Mr. P. A. Daniel, and puts forward his own with great ability. He considers that we have to bear in mind (1) garbling by a reporter of the play as performed on the stage; (2) cutting, and possibly rewriting, for acting purposes, by a stage adapter; (3) working over by an authorized reviser of the original text (underlying the Quarto), and the production of a new version (substantially that of the Folio text). As for the reporter, Dr. Greg shows that his task was not so difficult as might be imagined by his own experience of reporting and writing a tolerable text of a play of Mr. Shaw's. This reporter who was responsible for the Quarto text was, Dr. Greg suggests, the actor who played the part of Mine Host, for the speeches of that part are reported with very unusual accuracy. The notes after the text show a laudable reluctance to consent to conjectures, however specious, where the Quarto and Folio readings agree.

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When Slender says (1. 110 of the Quarto) of a Fencer "that "he hot my shin," he is using a past tense of "hit " which we have often heard in Shakespeare's country.

166

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There are notes on two well-known difficulties, gongarian and garmombles," neither of which, we note, appears in the 'N.E.D.' As for the former, until Steevens's quotation from one of the old bombast plays which he " forgot to note" has been discovered, comment, as Dr. Greg sensibly remarks, is useless. As for the other odd word, Dr. Greg regards the passage in which it occurs as unoriginal, and a substitution for a more elaborate scene which had to be cut out. So if garmombles is not a wild blunder, it does not belong to the original text, but is sly allusion to the censored episode introduced by the actor (an Elizabethan Pelissier) for the

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benefit of an audience familiar with current

dramatic scandal." This must certainly be the first appearance of the leader of "The Follies " in serious criticism.

Neither the Folio nor the Quarto gives such an ending to the play in the last act as we might expect from Shakespeare. That is the view of Dr. Greg, and of other critics; or, if the work is Shakespeare's, it "has almost disappeared under a twofold revision by a greatly inferior playwright."

Dr. Greg's recension of the play is so thorough and searching that it cannot be disregarded by any future editor. We congratulate him on a piece of work which must have cost him a large amount of time and labour. The modern and expert "de minimis curat bibliographer with the best. results.

The Little Guides.-Staffordshire. By Charles Masefield. With 32 Illustrations, 2 Plans, and 2 Maps.-The Channel Islands. By E. E. Bicknell. With 32 Illustrations and 5 Maps. (Methuen & Co.)

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WISE reviewers always keep their copies of "The Little Guides," if they can, for this series is at once thorough, sound in information, and practical. The alphabetical arrangement gives ready means of access to the detail desired, when the facts will be found set out distinctly, and without the parade of verbiage which disfigures most guide-books.

The present reviewer has used many volumes of the series with advantage, and always asks for them when he does not possess them. Details which concern the historian or archæologist as opposed to the ordinary tourist are not lacking, and there are signs everywhere of that personal knowledge which is essential for real help to the traveller. The maps are thoroughly useful. A few trifles in names need amending.

Both writers very sensibly ask for corrections, and in the case of the Channel Islands it would not be a bad scheme, we think, to put the little book on the boats which ply backwards and forwards from England, and ask for criticism from passengers.

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