404 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 25. 
irreparable blunder when he whitewashed the 
monumental efligy of the matchless Shakspere. 
Of the blunder ascribed to him by a reverend 
querist (No. 14. p.213.) he was quite innocent. 
Before we censure an author or editor, we 
should consult his own edition. He cannot be an- 
swerable for the errors of any other impression. 
Such, at least, is my notion of critical equity. 
I shall now state the plain facts. Malone, in 
the first instance, printed the spurious decla- 
ration of John Shakspear in an imperfect state. 
(Plays and poems of W. S., 1790., vol. i. part ii. 
p- 162.) He was soon afterwards enabled to 
complete it. (Ibid. vol. i. part ii. p. 330.) Steevens 
reprinted it entire, and without comment. (Plays 
of W.S., 1793., vol. ii. p. 300.). Now the editor 
of the lrish reimpression, who must have omitted 
to consult the edition of Steevens, merely com- 
mitted a blunder in attempting to unite the two 
fragments as first published by Mr. Malone. 
There was no audacious fabrication on the occa 
sion —there is no mystery in the case! (No. 24. 
p- 386.) So, to stop the current of misconception, 
and economise space on future occasions, I venture 
to repeat a few words in suggesting as a canon of 
criticism :— Before we censure an author or editor, 
we should consult his own edition. 
Bourton Corney. 
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES. 
Compendyous Olde Treatyse.—“ ¥. M.” (No. 18. 
p. 277.) will find this tract reprinted (with the ex- 
ception of the preface and verses) in Foxe’s Acts 
and Monuments ; a portion once peculiar to the 
first edition of 1563, p.452., but now appearing in 
the reprint of 1843, vol. iv. p. 671-76 ; which may 
be of some service in the absence of the original 
tract. Novus. 
Hordys (No. 5. p. 157.).—I have waited till 
now in hopes of seeing an answer from some more 
competent pen than my own to the Query as to 
the meaning of the word “ hordys,” by your cor- 
respondent “J. G.;” but having been disappointed, 
I venture a suggestion which occurred to me im- 
mediately on reading it, viz. that ‘‘hordys” might 
be some possible or impossible derivation from 
hordeum, and applied “‘irreverently” to the conse- 
crated host, as though it were no better than a 
common barley-cake. 
Whether in those early days, and in Ireland, 
the host was really made of barley, and whether 
“hordys” was a name given to some kind of 
barley-cake then in vogue, or (supposing my sug- 
gestion to be well founded) a word coined for the 
occasion, may perhaps be worthy of investigation. 
A. R. 
Kenilworth, April 5. 
Eachard’s Tracts. —The Rev. George Wyatt, 
who inquires (No. 20. p. 320.) about Eachard’s 
Tracts, will probably get all the information he 
wants from the Life of Eachard, prefixed to the 
collected edition of his Works, in three volumes, 
which I am sorry I have not the means at present 
of referring to. 
“TJ. O.,” to whom the last of the tracts is ad- 
dressed, is Dr. John Owen. 
Philautus (what objection is there to Latinis- 
ing, in the usual way, the Greek termination os?) 
is, of course, intended for Hobbes; and, to con- 
vey Eachard’s opinion of him, his opponent in the 
Dialogue is Timothy, a God-honourer. 
Let me add, as you have headed Mr. Wyatt’s 
communication “Tracts attributed to Eachard,” 
thereby casting a doubt upon his authorship, that 
there is no doubt about Dr. John Eachard being 
the author of all the tracts which Mr. Wyatt 
enumerates; nor- was there any concealment by 
Eachard. His authorship of the Grounds and 
Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy is noto- 
rious. The “Epistle Dedicatory,” signed “J. E.,” 
mentioned by Mr. Wyatt as prefixed to the Dia- 
logue on Hobbes’s State of Nature, refers also to 
the five subsequent letters. These were published 
at the same time with the Dialogue on Hobbes, 
in one volume, and are answers to attacks on the 
Grounds and Occasions, &c. ‘Lhe Epistle Dedica- 
catory is addressed to Gilbert Sheldon, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, “and,” says Eachard, “I 
hope my Dialogue will not find the less accept- 
ance with your Grace for these Letters which 
follow after.” 
The second edition of the volume I have by me, 
published in 1672: the title, Mr. Hobbes’s State of 
Nature considered, &c.; to which are added, Five 
Letters from the Author of “ The Grounds and 
. Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy.” C, 
Masters of St. Cross.—In reply to “H. Ep- 
warps” (No. 22. p.352.), A List of the Masters 
of St. Cross, I believe, is given in Browne Willis’s 
Mitred Abbies, vol.i.; but the most correct and 
perfect list is in the Sketches of Hampshire, by the 
late John Duthy, Esq. Henry or Humfrey de 
Milers is the first master whose name is recorded, 
and nothing further is known of him: between 
Bishop Sherborne and Bishop Compton there were 
thirteen masters. F. J. B. 
Has “H. Epwarps” seen the History of St. 
Cross Hospital, by Mr. Moody, published within 
the last six months? It may materially assist him. 
Joun R. Fox. 
A living Dog better than a dead Lion.—Your 
correspondent “Mr. Joun Sansom” may, per~- 
haps, accept the following as an answer to the first 
part of his Query (No. 22. p. 352.). In an ancient 
MS. preserved in the archives of the see of Ossory, 
at fol. 66., is entered, in a hand of the latter part 
of the fourteenth century, a list of ancient pro- 
verbs under the following heading :— 
