2"d S. N» 37., Sept. 13. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



207 



said on this subject, I think your readers will 

 have no difficulty in accepting Mr. Staunton's 

 emendation ; and in reading with him — 



" And they in France of the best rank and station 

 Are of a most select and generous sheaf in that," — 



i. e. in matters of dress. Sheaf means a clique, 

 class, or set in fashionable society. 



C. Mansfield Inglebt. 

 Birmingham. 



" All the World's a Stage " (2"'^ S. ii. 44.) — 

 As the version of this sentiment by Erasmus has 

 appeared in " N. & Q." by way of contrast with 

 that by Shakspeare, the following from Calderon 

 may not prove uninteresting : 



" On the theatre of earth 

 All mankind are merely players : 

 One enacts a sovereign king, 

 One a prince, and one a noble, 

 Unto whom the rest do homage. 

 For the space, and for the instant. 

 The part endures, he seems 

 Master of the wills of all. 

 But the play of life, played out 

 With the dropping of the curtain. 

 Death within the green-room brings 

 All the actors to their level." 



The last lines will remind the reader how often 

 Young in his Night Thoughts draws his similes 

 from the stage. In one of them, Death appears as 

 a " door-keeper." Cei'vantes, it will be remem- 

 bered, died within ten days of Shakspeare, in the 

 year 1616. J. Doran. 



" When we have shuffled off this mortal coil" 

 (2"^ S. i. 151. 221.)— Your correspondent X. 

 denies (at the second reference) that the use of 

 " mortal coil " for the body of a creature is the 

 " common interpretation " (as I had stated) of 

 this phrase. I have demanded of several intelli- 

 gent friends what they understand by " mortal 

 coil" in Hamlet, and they each replied, "Why, 

 the body of the person who makes his quietus." 

 As if on purpose to confirm my assertion, we find 

 Mr. R. W. Hackwood using the phrase " before 

 finally throwing oiF this mortal coil " (2"'^ S. ii. 

 148.), doubtless labouring under the impression 

 that he was quoting Shakspeare, and that the 

 " mortal coil " is a synonym for body. 



C. Mansfield Inglebt. 



Birmingham, 



THE STARS IN THE EAST. 



In Kitto's Cyclopcedia of Biblical Literature, I 

 find it stated, that under the influence of a con- 

 junction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, which took 

 place in 1604, the great astronomer, Kepler, 



" was led to think that he had discovered means for de- 

 termining the true year of our Saviour's birth. He made 



his calculations, and found that Jupiter and Saturn were 

 in conjunction in the constellation of the Fishes (a fish is 

 the astrological symbol of Judasa), in the latter half of 

 the year of Rome 747, and were joined by Mars in 748. 

 Here then he fixed the first figure in the date of our era, 

 and here he found the nppearance in the heavens which 

 induced the magi to undertake their journey, and con- 

 ducted them successfully on their way. Others have 

 taken up this view, freed it from astrological impurities, 

 and shown its trustworthiness and applicability in the 



case under consideration The conclusion, in regard 



to the time of the Advent, is, that our Lord was born in 

 the latter part of the year of Rome 747, or six years 

 before the common era. .... A recent writer of con- 

 siderable merit, Wieseler, has applied this theory of 

 Kepler's, in conjunction with a discovery that he has 

 made from some Chinese astronomical tables, which 

 shows, that in the year of Rome 750, a comet appeared in 

 the heavens, and was visible for seventy days. Wieseler's 

 opinion is, that the conjunction of the planets excited 

 and fixed the attention of the magi, but that their guid- 

 ing-star was the aforesaid comet." — Vol. ii. p. 794. 



Neither in the article first quoted on the sub- 

 ject, nor under the head "Chronology" in the 

 same valuable repository of biblical lore is there 

 mention of, on reference to, A Chronological In- 

 traduction to the Histoi'y of the Church, by the 

 Rev. S. F. Jarvis, — a very able work, published 

 with the imprimatur of the Bishops of the Anglican 

 Church in the United States ; the judicious author 

 of which has been led, by a course of original in- 

 quiry and laborious investigation, to the same con- 

 clusion as that arrived at by Kepler on the grounds 

 cited above ; and which, from other data, has been 

 previously silently adopted by the French Bene- 

 dictines in their learned work, V Art de Verifier 

 les Dates, namely, that the birth of our Saviour 

 should be antedated by six years. This coinci- 

 dence, on the part of such authorities on so im- 

 portant a point, merits specification ; and, so 

 thinking, I " make a note of it." Delta. 



iflflinor ^0tpjf. 



Peculiar Marriage Custom. — The following is 

 an extract from papers in the collection of Dr. 

 Kennett, Harl. MS., 7048.: — 



" Here ensueth certain unreasonable exactions by cus- 

 tom of long tj'me used to be taken of both poore and 

 riche by the curates in y® dj'ocesses of Seint Asse and 

 Bangor. It is the custom in the s<i dyocess that everye 

 man and woman, when they shall be marryed, shall yeld 

 unto y^ curate the x*^ parte of all their goods, as well the 

 woman as the man, or els to fyne therefore. And if a 

 man chance to bringe his wife, or the woman her hus- 

 band, about Mydsummer, and then payeth all his tythes 

 belonging to Herveste, as of Hey and Come, and then 

 incontynent after Harvest hapen to marye, bothe the 

 man and the woman shall paye the tenth again, notwith- 

 standing y late tything at hervest. And besides all this, 

 they shall paye a certain some for y' bodyes the daye of 

 yr inaryage. But whoso lyste to lyve in adulterye ther 

 his Fyiie is but ii* by the yere to the ordinarye, the w<^'» 

 causeth matrimonye to be little sett by and much refused 

 in those partes. 



