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Nov. 10. 1849.] 
being special instances: but they are, in either 
case, curious and satisfactory evidence of the 
care and caution exercised by the monks in 
cases where their books were concerned ; and 
one cannot but regret that when the time 
came that the monasteries were destined to 
be dissolved, and their books torn and scat- 
tered to the winds, no attention was paid to 
Bale’s advice for the formation of “ one so- 
lemne library in every shire of England.” 
JOsEPH Burtt. 
PEDLAR’S SONG ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKSPERE, 
AND TRADITION CONNECTED WITH SHAK- 
SPERE’S ‘“‘ HAMLET.” 
The following verses, which would form a 
very appropriate song for Autolycus, were 
arranged asa glee for three voices by Dr. Wil- 
son about the year 1667. They are published 
in Playford’s Musical Companion in 1673 ; in 
Warren’s Collection of Glees and Catches ; 
and in S. Webbe’s Conveto Harmonico. The 
words were, I believe, first ascribed to Shak- 
spere, by Clark, in 1824, in his Words of 
Glees, Madrigals, &c.; but he has not given 
his authority for so doing. It has been stated 
that they have since been discovered in a 
common-place book written about Shakspere’s 
time, with his name attached to them, and 
with this indirect evidence in favour of their 
being written by him, that the other pieces 
in the collection are attributed to their proper 
writers. The late Mr. Douce, who was in- 
clined to believe the song to have been written 
by Shakspere, once saw a copy of it with a 
fourth verse which was shown to him by the 
then organist of Chichester. The poem is not 
included in Mr. Collier’s edition of Shakspere, 
nor in the Aldine edition of Shakspere’s Poems, 
edited by the Rev. A. Dyce. Perhaps if you 
will be good enough to insert the song and 
the present communication in the “ Nores aND 
Queries,” some of your readers may be enabled 
to fix the authorship, and to furnish the ad- 
ditional stanza to which I have referred. 
PEDLAR’S SONG. 
From the far Lavinian shore, 
pons markets come to store; 
use not, though so far I dwell, 
And my wares come here to sell ; 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
23 
Such is the sacred hunger for gold. 
Then come to my pack, 
While I cry 
“ What d’ye lack, 
What d’ye buy ? 
For here it is to be sold.” 
I have beauty, honour, grace, 
Fortune, favour, time, and place, 
And what else thou would’st request, 
E’en the thing thou likest best ; 
First, let me have but a touch of your gold. | | 
Then, come to me, lad, 
Thou shalt have 
What thy dad 
Never gave; 
For here it is to be sold. 
Madam, come, see what you lack, 
Tve complexions in my pack ; 
White and red you may have in this place, 
To hide your old and wrinkled face. 
First, let me have but a touch of your gold, 
Then you shall seem 
Like a girl of fifteen, 
Although you be threescore and ten years old. 
While on this subject, perhaps I may be 
permitted to ask whether any reader of the 
** NoTEs. AND QUERIES” can throw light on the 
following questionable statement made by a 
correspondent of the Morning Herald, of the 
16th September, 1822. 
“ Looking over an old volume the other day, 
printed in 1771, I find it remarked that it was 
known asa tradition, that Shakspeare shut himself 
up all night in Westminster Abbey when he wrote 
the ghost scene in Hamlet.” 
I do not find in Wilson’s Shakspeariana the 
title of a single “ old” book printed in 1771, 
on the subject of Shakspere. He 
SIR WILLIAM SKIPWYTH, KING’S JUSTICE 
IN IRELAND. 
Mr. Editor, — I am encouraged by the 
eminent names which illustrate the first 
Number of your new experiment —a most 
happy thought —to inquire whether they, or 
any other correspondent, can inform me who 
was the William de Skypwith, the patent of 
whose appointment as Chief Justice of the 
King’s Bench in Ireland, dated February 15. 
1370, 44 Edward III., is to be found in the 
New Federa, vol. iii. p. 877? In the entry 
on the Issue Roll of that year, p. 458., of the 
payment of “his expences and equipment” in 
going there, he iscalled “Sir William Skipwyth, 
Knight, and the King’s Justice in Ireland.” | 
