with these lines, yet they are found in the sixth family, and many of his issue are now living. If and seventh verses of the introduction. Oxford. H. KREBS. SIR THOMAS JOSHUA PLATT (7th S. x. 507), born 1790, was son of Thomas Platt, a London solicitor. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He took his B. A. degree with honours in 1810, and proceeded to his M.A. in 1814. In the year 1816 he was called to the Bar as a member of the Inner Temple. He joined the home circuit, and ultimately acquired a considerable practice. He took silk in 1835, and ten years later, January, 1845, he was raised to the Bench as one of the Barons of the Exchequer, which position he retained until November, 1856, when in consequence of ill-health he retired. He survived his retirement twelve years, dying on February 10, 1862. Serjeant Ballantine was in the chambers of Platt for the period of three months or thereabouts. Ballantine, in his Experiences,' de scribes Platt as "worthy of a place in any legal records. Well educated, but with no commanding talent, with no pretence to eloquence, and starting from a comparatively humble position, by industry and perseverance, and most upright and honorable conduct, he achieved the high position I have mentioned, with the respect of the public and the profession. And yet strange to say he violated the obvious intention of nature, and, like Liston, the comedian, who imagined himself to have been intended for tragedy, although essentially comic in the form and expression of his features......with a face that seemed made to create laughter, would plant upon it the most lugubrious of looks. 'Pray,' said Lord Lyndhurst to him one day, 'spare us that wife and twelve children face. Never theless his appeals to common juries were very effective. The following climax, which I remember, greatly increased the damages awarded to a young lady for whom he was counsel: And, gentlemen, this serpent in human shape stole the virgin heart of my unfortunate client whilst she was returning from confirmation.'' Richmond, Surrey. T. W. TEMPANY. Sir Thomas Joshua Platt died in Portland Place, London, on February 10, 1862, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was the son of Thomas Platt, a solicitor, who held the office of principal clerk to Lords Mansfield, Kenyon, and Ellenborough, Chief Justices of the King's Bench. Some of his descendants, I believe, reside at Uplyme, Devonshire, close to Lyme Regis. G. F. R. B. The father of Sir T. J. Platt was Thomas Platt, of Brunswick Square, an attorney and solicitor, and chamber clerk under Chief Justices Mansfield, Kenyon, and Ellenborough. A full account of Mr. Platt will be found in the Times, Wednesday, October 19, 1842. The late Mr. William Platt, a frequent contributor to 'N. & Q.,' was the youngest brother of the judge. Sir T. J. Platt had a large MR. COSMO DU PLAT likes to communicate with me, I shall be happy to give him any information in my power about this family or others of the HUGH E. P. PLATT. same name. 18, Kensington Court Place, W. The late Mr. Baron Platt's family were, I believe, chiefly connected with the law. In my younger days I was frequently at Hertford during the assizes, on occasions when my father was on the Grand Jury, and have a distinct recollection of cases there in which Platt and Thesiger (afterwards Lord Chelmsford) were engaged on opposite sides. It happened to me afterwards, upon leaving Oxford, to read in the chambers of a relative of Baron Platt, and if MR. DU PLAT will favour me with his address, I will answer his question further. FRED. CHAS. CASS. Monken Hadley Rectory. DR. SHARPE'S 'CALENDAR OF WILLS' (7th S. xi. 39).-Your review of this book makes one's mind's mouth water. But, alas! how is the appetite to be gratified? Are the outside public to be allowed to possess these privately-printed volumes on any terms of £. s. d., supplemented by HERMENTRude. good behaviour? [Apply at the Town Clerk's Office, Guildhall.] SHELP (7th S. xi. 7).—May not this be shallop? E. LEATON-BLENKINSOPP. ORIGIN OF THE PLACE-NAME ASHSTEAD (7th S. x. 424, 495). The conflict of ash versus oak seems likely to end in this case, as it often does in nature, in the triumph of the former. The "Deus" has intervened in the person of the learned PROF. SKEAT, but the "nodus" is by no means solved. The balance of evidence appears to me to be largely in favour of the ash. In the first place, there is the present spelling, which goes for something; and, secondly, the fact that the nature of the soil is much more favourable to the growth of the ash than of the oak, which goes for more. A natural feature is mostly a safe guide in determining placenames. The oak may be abundant, as MR. LYNN states, but it has been for the most part planted, as in the park, and the return in Domesday of 66 seven 'lean' hogs" is evidence conclusive of no extensive oak forest or abundance of pannage. Domesday Survey it is merely "Stede," so that that decides nothing. It is true that in a writ of Quo Warranto, 1279, it is called "Akestede"; but in deeds of 1386, 1453, and onwards from that time until the present day, the place has been always written Ashtede or Ashstead. In There is an undoubted Ac-stede in Surrey, ten miles south of Croydon-the Acustyde of the Anglo-Saxon charters, Domesday Acstede, subsequently Okested, now Oxted. To the present day the growth of oaks is abundant, and the state ment of Domesday Survey that "the wood yields a hundred 'fat' hogs" points to an oak wood of great size. It is very unlikely that Acstedeleah in Kemble's index has anything to do with Ashstead, the suffix ley occurring very rarely in the Hill or Down district (I can only recall Hedley, near Epsom, and Farley, near Croydon). If not referable to Oxted, it is far more probable that it may be identified with Ockley, a village in the Weald to the south of Dorking, not mentioned in Domesday, but lying on the Stane Street, and traditionally the site of a battle between King Alfred and the Danes. The "leys," as we should naturally expect, are abundant in the wealden district. G. L. G. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (7th S. x. 508). Not a plant, a leaf, a blossom, but contains, &c. See Hurdis, 'The Village Curate,' p. 33, 1810. W. R. MORFILL. Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, &o. The Strife of Love in a Dream: being the Elizabethan Version of the First Book of the Hypnerotomachia of Francesco Colonna. A New Edition, by Andrew Lang. (Nutt.) ONE more work of extreme curiosity and rarity has been added to the fascinating "Tudor Library" of Mr. David Nutt, who now divides with Mr. Nimmo the credit of publishing the books most rejoicing to the soul of the bibliophile. Of the 'Hypnerotomachia' of Colonna no full translation has been made, and none, Mr. Lang thinks, will be seen. In this unimportant matter we are scarcely in accord with him. Many French translations have been made, and two translations or adaptations have appeared during the present century. Both these are before us, and neither is unreadable. Except that it is printed with the perfection of an Elzevir by Didot l'ainé, An XIII. MDCCCIV., the traduction [très] libre of J. G. Legrand has little to recommend it. It is, however, readable, and not wholly unattractive. M. Claudius Popelin, meanwhile, issued in 1880, through Isidore Lisieux, and at a costly rate (150 fr.), what claims to be the first complete translation. This is accompanied by prefatory matter, exhaustive concerning the author, scope, sources, and method of the book, and by reproductions of the Renaissance designs which have secured for the original edition of 1499, one of the rarest and costliest of Aldine publications, its marvellous popularity among artists. Into the merits of the original there is little temptation to enter. A copy of the Aldine edition sold in June, 1888, at the Turner sale, for 1371. Those who know the book know all about it, and those who do not will scarcely claim to be bibliophiles. Its praises have been warmly sung; it is credited with having revived certain branches of artistic study; its remarkable designs have been attributed to a dozen eminent artists; and its story has been charged with all kinds of mystical import, and has even been supposed to hide in some undecipherable manner the secret of the philosopher's stone. As a mixture of realism and mysticism, of quaint and untrust worthy information and wild and erotic imaginings, it stands almost alone. Its form of a vision is, as the student of literature knows, familiar at its epoch, and its keen and sensual delight in art is also not unknown. In this last respect it reminds us of the passion for learning which characterized Renaissance times. Mr. Lang's description of the author may perhaps be held to indicate the truth: "He is a Christian monk, vowed to poverty and chastity, and nothing is dear to him but heathenism and luxury in all its forms." realism of the worship of luxury does not disappear. On From the English translation of one of the two books the the strength of the dedication, which is signed "R. D.," Mr. Douce conjectured that the translator may have been Robert Dallyngton, who translated the Mirrour of Mirth' from the French of Bonaventure des Periers, 1583. As Des Periers himself-though at a subsequent date, so far as is known-dealt with the Hypnerotomachia,' this seems plausible. R. D. has, however, enriched his work with language at which Lyly might shudder. Never were seen words such as those with which his book teems, and if, as is probably the case, Dr. Murray's readers have not seen his translation, a supplement to the Dictionary' must almost be required. "Incalcerate," "hemicirculately enstrophiated," "mettaline gates," "cantionell verse," "poyterelles of gold,' "prependent points," champhered," "nextnilles," "Bolaciously," " pampynulated," splendycant - with such philological gems the work is studded. In spite of its marvellous style, it may be read, although Mr. Lang seems scarcely to think so. Its naïveté, to use a word we confess to be euphemistic, will recommend it to some readers, though its quaintness and curiosity will perhaps be its chief recommendation. The reprint is exact, with the exception of substituting the short for the long s, and a certain number of beautiful designs from the original for the wretched plates of the translation. Mr. Lang's prefatory matter, there is no need to say, is graceful, vivacious, and spirited. Not the least interesting portion is his confession how, after coming on a copy of the original, which is one of the scarcest of English books, he changed it, on account of some imperfection, for a volume by comparison commonplace. Mr. Nutt's handsome edition is limited to five hundred copies. 66 English Constitutional History from the Teutonic Conquest to the Present Time, By T. P. Taswell-Langmead, B.C.L. Fourth Edition. Revised, with Notes and Appendices, by C. H. E. Carmichael, M.A. (Stevens & Haynes.) THE value of this text-book to the student of English history has been proved by the widespread and increasing use which is made of it in universities and colleges throughout our colonies, and in the United States, as well as in the old country. It deals, indeed, with many subjects on which we are ourselves constantly addressed by readers, and many a query would be rendered unnecessary by a reference to the work before us. On the other hand, our own contributors, it may be seen, have from time to time afforded the present editor matter for discussion in his notes to the new edition. This fact is one which we are glad to notice, as it shows that we are fulfilling one at least of our many purposes, that of arousing discussion in the world of letters. We are also pleased to find that several of our contributors are specially named, either for their articles in our pages or for works separately published. In the present edition Mr. Carmichael has added largely to his appendices, and has treated many questions of interest alike to the mother country and to her offspring in the colonies and United States. From the Western Law Times of Manitoba and from the account of The Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Constitution of Connecticut,' modestly states that "there is no doubt that the cause of the elliptical revolution of the earth is the evolution of vegetable life." (What of the revolution of the moon?) Beyond our atmosphere he conceives that progene exists alone, and that light is propagated through it instantaneously, so that astronomers are utterly in error when they speak of the time occupied by waves of light in reaching our eyes from the stars. We can promise readers some amusement from a perusal of this work, which is the precursor, and is to form a part, of a larger one on Universal Physiology'; but we must leave it to themselves whether they will accept the author's views. printed by the Connecticut Historical Society, no less than from the Genealogist and N. & Q.,' from ' Domesday Studies,' from the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and from the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland,' materials have been drawn for notes and appendices which cannot fail to add to the usefulness of the fourth edition of this well-known book. The terseness and clearness of style which distinguished the late Prof. Taswell-Langmead, taken in connexion with the varied sources from which his text has been illustrated and brought well down to date by his old Oxford friend, who edits the work, render Taswell-Langmead's English Constitutional History' one of the best textbooks on the important subject with which it deals. WE read with much regret of the death of an old correspondent of N. & Q.' in Mr. Thomas Kerslake, De Quincey's Collected Writings. By David Masson. well known as an antiquary, and at one time as a bookVol. XIV. (A. & C. Black.) seller. Mr. Kerslake, who died at Clevedon, in his THIS handy, convenient, and in every way enjoyable edition of De Quincey is now completed, and within the seventy-ninth year, began business in Bristol so early as 1828. He had a great knowledge of early English reach of students, to whom it will be welcome. It con- literature, and a collection of his catalogues would now sists of Miscellanies,' and an excellent index by Mr. have genuine value. In some of these the books were Wheatley, F.S.A. More than one of the works comso rare and so moderate in price that something was prised in the former portion is now reprinted for the first time. Mr. Masson still supplies his elucidatory and said about the whole being fanciful, and constituting an important introduction, and furnishes notes of no less attempt to make game of collectors. Being fortunate enough to have obtained every book ordered from one of value. We congratulate him upon the completion of the most surprising of these, we can speak for the bona what has obviously been a pleasing labour, and recom- fides of the whole. At a distance of thirty-five years mend this edition of a man who, without writing any-it is difficult to remember all the books thus obtained. thing that can well be called a book, has taken at an early date rank as a classic. An Introduction to Dynamics, including Kinematics, Theory of Physics. A Rectification of the Theories of THE title conveys a hint that the scope of this work is A noble copy of Wither's 'Juvenilia' for 16s. and Mrs. Behn's plays for 12s. were two of the items. Until quite recently Mr. Kerslake kept up his contributions to our columns. THE edition of The Collected Sermons of Thomas Fuller,' which the late Mr. Eglington Bailey began, has been completed by Mr. W. E. Axon. It will fill two volumes and will be published by subscription. The volumes comprise Prayer before Sermon,' from the exceedingly rare edition of Pulpit Sparks,' 1659; thirty separate sermons; six larger treatises; some fragmentary passages from unpublished sermons; and a short tract on the history of the Jews, written as an appendix to Howel's translation of Josephus ben Gorion. The sermons are arranged chronologically. Notices to Correspondents. We must call special attention to the following notices: ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately. To secure insertion of communications correspondents must observe the following rule. 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