The Barberini Library at Rome contains a vast number of books covered with marginal notes by celebrated writers, such as Scaliger, Allatius, Holstentius, David Haeschel, Barbadori, and above all, Tasso, who has annotated with his own hand more than fifty volumes. Valery, in his _Voyages en Italie_, states that a Latin version of Plato is not only annotated by the hand of Tasso, but also by his father, Bernardo; a fact which sufficiently proves how deeply the language and philosophy of the Greek writers were studied in the family. The remarks upon the _Divina Commedia_, which, despite the opinion of Serassi, appear to be authentic, attest the profound study which, from his youth, Tasso had made of the great poets, and the lively admiration he displayed for their works. There is also in existence a copy of the Venice edition of the _Divina Commedia_ (1477), with autograph notes by Bembo. Christina of Sweden had quite a mania for writing in her books. In the library of the Roman College (at Rome) there are several books annotated by her, amongst others a {52} Quintus Curtius, in which, as it would appear, she criticises very freely the conduct of Alexander. "_He reasons falsely in this case_," she writes on one page; and elsewhere, "_I should have acted diametrically opposite; I should have pardoned_;" and again, further on, "_I should have exercised clemency_;" an assertion, however, we may be permitted to doubt, when we consider what sort of clemency was exercised towards Monaldeschi. Upon the fly-leaf of a Seneca (Elzevir), she has written, "_Adversus virtutem possunt calamitates damna et injuriæ quod adversus solem nebulæ possunt_." The library of the Convent of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem at Rome, possesses a copy of the _Bibliotheca Hispanu_, in the first volume of which the same princess has written on the subject of a book relating to her conversion: [1] "_Chi l'ha scritta, non lo sa; chi lo sa, non l'ha mai scritta_." Lemontey has published some very curious _Memoirs_, which had been entirely written on the fly-leaves and margins of a missal by J. de Coligny, who died in 1686. Racine, the French tragic poet, was also a great annotator of his books; the Bibliothèque National at Paris possesses a Euripides and Aristophanes from his library, the margins of which are covered with notes in Greek, Latin, and French. The books which formerly belonged to La Monnoie are now recognizable by the anagram of his name. _A Delio nomen_, and also by some very curious notes on the fly-leaves and margins written in microscopic characters. G.J.K. [Footnote 1: Conversion de la Reina de Suecia in Roma (1656).] * * * * * ORIGIN OF WORD "GROG."