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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9*s.m.MAB.i8,m

phlet of the kind. Mr. Farmer points out that Oldys wrote nearly one hundred and fifty years later than Nash, and doubts whether a book which, if printed, must have been well known, could have so entirely disappeared that no copy is known to exist. Harvey was, however, of the same date as Nash, and was, as is well known, his principal antagonist. If the passage can still be advanced in which Harvey says that the book was published, cadit qufKstio. It is quite conceivable that the book was entirely destroyed, according to the order, quoted by Cooper in the 'Athense Cant.,' ii. 306, "that all Nashes books and Dr. Harvey s books be taken, wheresoever they may be found, and that none of the said books be new printed hereafter." At any rate, the tract is now issued in a hand- some form and a limited edition, and will doubtless find a place upon the shelves of the collectors of what in booksellers' catalogues are variously styled, or misstyled, "curiosa," " erotica," " facetise, and the like. ' The Choise of Valentines ' is a poem of some three to four hundred lines, concerning which the editor confesses that it has little either of literary merit or intrinsic value to commend it. Every tract belonging to Elizabethan times is held to merit publication, and this work accordingly sees the light. Some interest attaches to it in con- sequence of its being dedicated to Shakspeare's Lord Southampton. It is printed from two manu- scripts, both more or less incomplete, but each in parts supplementary to the other. These are respectively in the Bodleian and the Inner Temple Library. The work will probably, as the editor claims for it, be of some significance in regard to the elucidation of the life of Shakspeare.

A Forgotten Past : being Notes on the Families of Tyssen, Baker, Hougham, and Milles, of Five Centuries. By F. H. Suckling. (Bell & Sons.) WE welcome with pleasure this very useful addition which Miss Suckling has made to GUI' genea- logical literature. Her book relates for the most part, though not by any means solely, to what may be called modern times in distinction from the mediseval period. So far as we have been able to test her labours the statements seem accurate, and we can detect none of those vain endeavours after making out kinships with far-away Plantagenets, Crusaders, and such like, which disfigure some pedigree-books with which we have had the mis- fortune to come in contact. Most of the persons recorded in Miss Suckling's pages have belonged to the upper middle class, and it is of such that in- formation is commonly the most scanty. Such persons do not appear except by accident in the national records, and when family papers fail the explorer there are few means by which the line can be traced. This is especially the case where the surnames are common and when many of the same stock were congregated in one neighbourhood. One of the wills which are here printed, we believe for the first time, is that of William Mylles, who states that he was "one of the Gentlemen Usshers to the right honourable Lady Elizabeth, one of the King's daughters." It was executed in 1536. What gives it an especial interest is the fact that "the Lady Mary, the King's daughter," was one of the witnesses. Sir John Baker, who was a member of the Privy Council and some time Chancellor of the Exchequer to Henry VIII., was a scion of one of the families in which Miss Suckling takes interest. He went by the name of Bloody Baker of Cran-

brook, a cognomen probably inflicted on him by his neighbours of the reforming party, and is said to have procured an order for burning two unfortunates for heresy, which, however, was frustrated by the death of Queen Mary. If our memory does not mislead us, Sir John is one of the characters in the late Mrs. Bray's novel 'The Protestant.' The authoress gives some interesting details regarding John Yelloly, M.D., F.R.S., and his surroundings. He was a man of considerable literary and scientific attainments, of whom it is well to have these memoranda, desultory as they are, for he was one of the founders of the Geological Society and an original member of the Society for the Advance- ment of Science. Miss Suckling should, however, be more careful as to giving exact references. We do not wish to be unduly severe on a work which has given us much pleasure, but it is beyond the limits of human endurance to be told that a long paragraph abounding in facts is taken from a "Northumberland paper." It would surely have been possible to discover its name and date.

THE March number of the Journal of the Ex- Libris Society is largely occupied with the late Walter Hamilton, a vice-president of the Society, whose death has been noted in our columns. A good portrait is supplied, and an appreciative memoir by Mr. James Roberts Brown. Mr. W. Y. Fletcher, F.S.A., begins a valuable essay on a sub- ject kindred with book-plates, namely, 'English Armorial Stamps on Bindings.' Mr. Arthur J. Jewers continues his account of ' Parker Book- plates.' Illustrations to the earlier papers have been designed, and will appear in the next number.

fjtotkes 10

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J. F. H. B. ("Lines on the Letter H"). They were written by Miss Fanshawe. See ' N. & Q.,' 7 th S. ii. 253, 390 ; iii. 33, 73, 158.

CORRIGENDUM. P. 157, col. 1, 1. 7, for " dyfian" read dyjiau.

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