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appear in the second scene. The remarks of the sailors are exactly like a remark of the boatswain in the opening of ' The Tempest.' The resemblance shows, if proof were neces- sary, that Shakspeare wrote this part of ' Pericles.' But proof is unnecessary; for the hand of Shakspeare is very conspicuous here. Shakspeare uses sea terms in ' The Tempest ' and in ' Pericles.' I understand that he has used them correctly; but some friend who was a seaman may have supplied them. Homer's descriptions of the sea are all natural : those of Shakspeare, I think, are almost all unnatural. He, doubtless, got some know- ledge of the sea from men and books. He also applied his knowledge of other things in nature to the sea. He had seen the sun turn a river into yellow gold, and he knew that it would affect the sea in the same way. He had looked down from the top of a hill on the land beneath, and could understand that a man, beholding the sea from a height, would be giddy. But I retain the opinion that he never saw it. Such expressions as " rude im- perious surge" and "wild sea banks" are very poetical, but they prove nothing, one way or the other. He speaks of the sea as green in colour :

Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red, Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams, Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams. ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' I suppose that the sea around England may be described as sometimes green, sometimes blue, and sometimes grey. In the south it is, in general, not " darkly," but " deeply, beauti- fully blue." In southern latitudes, about sun- set, everything is often bathed in a beautiful purple or violet hue. I have seen this my- self, but did not notice, in particular, the effect of the colour on the sea. Homer has not only^TTopfivptov KU/XO, " purple billow," but also ioei8ea TTOI/TOV, "violet-coloured sea,"and OLVOTTO. TTOVTOV, which perhaps may be considered the same as " claret-coloured sea." Hesiod, who uses much of Homer's language, has the ex- pressions ioeiSea TTOVTOV and OIVOTTI TTOVTM. Byron calls the southern sea dark blue and also purple. Of course, the sea has different colours under different conditions in all places. My recollection of the sea is dim. It is long since I saw it in the north, and much longer since I saw it in the south.

E. YARDLEY.

CAPT. GIBBS (9 th S. ii. 87). 1 know little of this worthy's antecedents, and nothing at all of his relatives (of his own or former genera- tions), but the little that I do know is at the service of SIGMA TAU, and, taken in con-

nexion with Mr. Eye's description of Capt. Gibbs, is somewhat amusing. Capt. John Gibbs, of the city of Norwich, buried at Attleborough in 1695, had married in 1674 Elizabeth, the only daughter and ultimately heir of Sir Thomas Pryde (or Pride) by Eliza- beth, daughter and ultimately heir of Thomas Monke of Potheridge, elder brother of General Monke, Duke of Albemarle. The bet that he made and the driving that he drove are written in Blomefield's ' History of Norfolk ' (quoting Le Neve), and finally in the Sporting Magazine of August, 1816. One can fancy the gallant captain, freed from the heavy hand and Puritan admonitions of his father- in-law, the administrator of " Pride's Purge," and cheerful in the thought that it was through his wife's great-uncle that the Merry Monarch was enjoying his own again, bursting forth as a shining light of sport in general, and of the turf in particular.

The said Elizabeth Gibbs married secondly William Sherwin, and in 1703 proved the will of her mother-in-law Anne Gibbs. By her first husband she left two daughters, Mary and Anne Gibbs, heroines of a cause c&ebre, in which they claimed as heirs at law of George, Duke of Albemarle, fully set forth in a pamphlet called ' The Case of the Heirs at Law,' published in 1709. Their "case" seemed a good one; but their opponents were the Earl of Bath and Duke of Montague, and, rightly or wrongly, "le droit du plus fort" prevailed. ALDENHAM.

Aldenham House.

SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE (9 th S. i. 467). The Eight Honourable Hercules Langrishe (afterwards created a baronet of Ireland) was a member of the Irish House of Commons for forty years, and was the first who advocated and obtained a partial relaxation of the harsh code of laws which oppressed the Eoman Catholics of Ireland. He died in February, 1811. It has been stated that the brightness of his mind and the flashes of his wit cast a lustre on all he touched, and whenever he appeared it was sunshine all round. Lang- rishe was entirely liberal in his sentiments and principles, and was an intimate friend of Burke and Grattan. He voted, however, for the Union, and subsequently received 15,000^. and a commissionership of revenue. Taking a great interest in things theatrical, he com- posed the following on a female singer of B-eat personal charms, then appearing in ublin :

May some good genius be thy friend, Auspicious on thy steps attend; Protect thee still from every foe, And guard the song that charmed us so!