2nd §, No 5., Fes, 2. 756.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
103 
Cathedral Registers (1"* S. xi. 445.) — Having 
occasion to pass through Canterbury this week, I 
employed a spare hour in revisiting (as I hope 
every stranger does) the fine old cathedral. In 
passing into the baptistery, the question was asked, 
“ Are christenings ever performed here now ?” 
To which the verger replied, ‘Oh! yes; we had 
one last month.” My memory greatly deceives 
me if a wedding was not celebrated at the cathe- 
dral*church here a short while since. For this 
cathedral there are registers regularly kept. A 
few years since, I had occasion to examine them, 
and they were produced to me in the chapter- 
house. G. BrinpLey AcworrTu. 
Star Hill, Rochester. 
Conversations with Wordsworth, §c. (1% 8. xii. 
518.) — A conversation, similar to that of Words- 
worth’s, which is here referred to, occurs in a 
little book entitled Lions Living and Dead. I am 
unable to give more particular information, as I 
have not the book at hand to refer to, nor do I 
remember the author's name, Ss. C. 
Irthlingboro’, e 
American Christian and Surnames (1* 8. xii. 
114.) — In addition to D. W.’s reply (1% S. xii. 
391.) to 0. ®.’s Query, the enclosed notice of the 
death of one of the persons referred to, which I 
have cut from a local paper of Dec. 5., may be 
interesting to your querist : 
“Died, at the residence of his son-in-law, Mr. A. 
Curtis, in North Dorchester, on the 29th Nov., Preserved 
Fish, aged 83 years,” 
Tuomas Hoperns. 
Toronto, Canada. 
Stone Aliars (1" S. xi. 426.; xii. 115.) — In the 
district church of St. George, Deal, in Kent, is 
to be seen one of these altars, which, it is said, 
originally belonged to Northbourne Priory, a few 
miles distant from Deal. It is always covered 
with the ordinary crimson velvet cloth, and is 
fortunately no bone of contention between the 
incumbent and his parishioners. ‘The fact of its 
existence may deserve a Note. 
G. Bainpiey Acwortu. 
Door Inscriptions (2°28. i.10.)—Upon each 
ilaster of the porch of West Harptree Manor 
ouse, co. Somerset, is the following singular 
inscription: “ Altogether Vanity.” The house is 
a good Elizabethan mansion, and appears to have 
undergone little or no alteration since its erection. 
A gallery ocefipies the whole of the front upper 
story. This house and estate, now belonging to 
the Duchy of Cornwall, was possessed by the 
family of Buckland for several generations ; and, 
probably, was the residence of Ralph Buckland 
(the celebrated Puritan, in the time of James I.), 
who left behind him the character of having been 
‘“‘a most pious and seraphical person, a person 
who went beyond all of his time for fervent 
devotion.” W. A. 
Blessing by the Hand, with the Fore and Second 
Fingers extended (1" 8. vi. 377.)—In Gliddon and 
Nott’s Types of Mankind (8vo., Philadelphia, 
1854), at p. 138., is figured — 
“Darius, in the act of uttering that address which 
stands inscribed on the vast cruciform tablet of Behistun, 
cut about 482 B.c.” 
He is represented with the fore and second 
fingers so extended. J.P. 
Signs (1% S. xi. 241.) — Several of your cor- 
respondents have given specimens. There is a 
curious paper on the subject in The Craftsman, 
No. 623., June 17, 1738, and another in No. 638. 
of the same year. B. H. C. 
PHiscellaneous. 
NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 
Students of Shakspeare have been looking long and 
anxiously for the promised Editions of the works of our 
great Dramatist, on which, as it has been generally un- 
derstood, Mr. Singer and Mr. Dyce have been for some 
time respectively engaged. At length we have before us 
The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare, the Text 
carefully revised, with Notes, by Samuel Weller Singer, 
F.S.A.. The Life of the Poet, and Critical Essays on the 
Plays, by William Watkiss Lloyd, M.R.S.L. This edition 
occupies ten volumes, beautifully printed and got up by 
Whittingham, and is issued in two forms, viz. in foolscap 
octavo, uniform with the Aldine Poets, with which it is 
intended it should range; and in crown octavo, corre- 
sponding with the crown octavo series of English Classics, 
issued by the late Mr. Pickering. Both are charming 
books, and while the smaller is admirably suited for a 
pocket Shakspeare, the larger forms a handsome library 
edition. Of Mr. Singer’s fitness for the task of editing 
Shakspeare, by long preliminary study, by thorough ac- 
quaintance with the nature and genius of our language, 
and by his intimate familiarity with the writers of the 
Elizabethan period, the columns of “N. & Q.” have ex- 
hibited so many and such unquestionable proofs, as to 
render further evidence upon the subject uncalled for, if 
not impertinent. We may therefore better employ the 
space to which our notice must necessarily be limited, 
with pointing out, in Mr. Singer’s own words, the pecu- 
liarities of the present edition. 
“In preparing the present edition,’ remarks Mr. 
Singer, “ after a sedulous collation of the old authorities, 
it has been my endeavour to suggest such emendations 
and explanations as a careful and mature consideration of 
the corrupt and obscure passages, taken with the context, 
seemed to indicate; and it will be seen that I have freely 
availed myself of the labours of all my predecessors. For 
the sake of compression, in many cases several pages of 
excursive discussion have been condensed into a few lines ; 
but it has not always been possible to acknowledge the 
source of the information conveyed. When these ex- 
planations are mere transcripts or abridgments, and un- 
accompanied by any observation of my own, it will of 
course be understood that I had nothing better to pro- 
pose. Yet I flatter myself that I have been in numerous 
instances fortunate enough to submit more satisfactory 
