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NOTES AND QUERIES. r0* s. ix. FEB. 22, 1902.

instance in which Jonson repeats himself. He uses the same phrase both of Bacfln and of no less august personages than their majesties King Charles I. and his queen. .Readers of Jonson's works will remember his poem addressed to Bacon on his birthday, which appeared in the collected edition of Jonson's miscellaneous poems, entitled ' Underwoods.' In it occur the lines :

Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full Out of their choicest and their whitest wool.

This phrase is repeated this time in prose* but without any considerable alteration in his 'Love's Welcome : the King and Queen's Entertainment at Bolsover, at the Earl of Newcastle's, the 30th of July, 1634' One of the characters in this entertainment, named Philalethes, speaking of the king and queen, who were present, is made to say of them, amongst other things : "The Fates spinning them round and even threads, and of their whitest wool, without brack or purl." This statement may not give the Baconian theorists their quietus, but it is, at least, an interesting instance of Jonson's employment of the same expression with respect to different indi- viduals on different occasions.

E. F. BATES. Kew Gardens.

COMPOUND WORDS. It is not always easy to say when a term should be expressed in two words, when the words should be linked with a hyphen, and when they should be arranged in a single undivided form. This difficulty gives variety of usage according to the divergent tastes and inclinations of dif- ferent writers. It would be well, however, if the same writer were uniform in his practice, and consistent with himself. In one espe- cially who affects authoritative deliverance a want of precision is readily noticeable, and looseness of method inevitably challenges comment. ^What might have been easily overlooked in another provokes wonder and inquiry when presented by the uncom- promising critic. Thus the attention is arrested in the first essay of Mr. Churton Collins's ' Ephemera Critica' by three phrases in which the same expression is given in three different forms. On p 34 the writer protests against "the puffers of bookmakers" ; on p. 35 he exposes "the creed of the modern book-maker " ; and on p. 40 he decries " the study of such Epitomes, Manuals, and Histories as are the work of mere irre- sponsible book makers." Mr. Collins mio-ht surely have selected one arrangement of the term and given it authoritative value by his imprimatur. THOMAS BAYNE, "

RESIDENTIAL STATE OF BROAD STREET AND BISHOPSGATE STREET IN 1677. In the Intro- duction (written, I believe, by John Camden Hotten, the bookseller, of Piccadilly) to the reprint of the first 'London Directory of Merchants,' 1677, it is stated that "compara- tively few merchants then [1677] resided in Broad Street, or in Bishopsgate Street. Eents were therefore low in that quarter." May we infer from this that these neighbourhoods were then also " low " ? I believe the state- ments to be quite unfounded, and should like to know what evidence (if any) there is to support the same. I have also grave doubts whether the writer had any information as to the annual value of house property either in those or any other parts of the City at the period in question information which he should have possessed before making the last of such statements except as a quotation. After giving him the credit of certain knowledge, which he was not at all likely to have had, one can only imagine that he based his conclusions on a comparison of the modern rentals of the houses in such streets with those of some two hundred years previously, without regard to the altered value of money, ifec. 1 have always looked upon Broad Street and Bishopsgate Street as fashionable residential neighbourhoods in former times ; but as they escaped the great fire of 1666, while most, if not all, of the destroyed portion of the City had in 1677 been recently rebuilt, it is probable that rents were lower for the old than the new buildings, to which latter the majority of the merchants and others may have flocked in preference, on account of the better accommodation and access.

E. C.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

TOWER : ST. PETER IN THE CHAINS. What was the ceremony that was alluded to in the papers recently in connexion with the erection of tablets and the transfer of bones at the chapel of the Tower? I ask as representing a lady who was buried there in the time of Elizabeth. D.

PORTUGUESE NAVAL SUPREMACY. I should be grateful for information as to the chief works in English which tell one briefly how, why, and when the Portuguese lost their former military and mercantile supremacy