_Shipster_.--A _scip-steora_ among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors was a pilot ("_ship-steerer_"). The word has descended to our own times in the surname of the family Shipster. As a common noun it was not obsolete in the days of Wynkyn de Worde, who printed that curious production "_Cock Lorelle's Bote_," one line of which runs thus:-- "With gogle-eyed Tomson, _shepster_ of Lyn." It is pretty certain, however, that this masculine occupation was not the one followed by "Marie Fraunceys de Suthwerk!" Pray accept this "Reply" for what it is worth. Perhaps I might have done better by meeting Mr. John R. Fox's "Query" (No. 14. p. 216.) with another. Should not the designation of Marie F. be _Spinster_ instead of Shipster? MARK ANTONY LOWER. Lewes, Feb. 2. _Sparse_.--Permit me to refer your correspondent "C. FORBES" for a reply to his query, p. 215. of your last Number, to the article "Americanism" in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_, the author of which observes:-- "_Sparse_ is, for any thing we know, a new word, and well applied; the Americans say a _sparse_ instead of a scattered population; and we think the term has a more precise meaning than scattered, and is the proper correlative of _dense_." In the _Imperial Dictionary_ (avowedly based upon Webster's American work, which I cannot at this moment refer to in its original form), the word in question is given both as an adjective and as a verb, and the derivatives "sparsed," "sparsedly," "sparsely," and "sparseness," are also admitted. The reference given for the origin of "sparse" is to the Latin "_sparsus_, scattered, from _spargo_;" and the definitions are, 1. "Thinly scattered, set or planted here and there; as, a _sparse_ population:" and, 2., as a botanical term, "not opposite, not alternate, nor in any regular order; applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, &c." J.T. STANESBY. _Cosmopolis--Complutensian Polyglot_.--Though in considerable haste, I must send replies to the fourth and eighth queries of my friend Mr. Jebb, No. 14. p. 213. _Cosmopolis_ was certainly Amsterdam. That the _Interpretationes paradoxae quatuor Evangeliorum_, by Christophorus Christophori Sandius, were there printed, appears from this writer's _Bibliotheca Anti-Trinitarionum_, p. 169., Freistad, 1684. I may add that "Coloniae" signifies "Amstelaedami" in the title-page of Sandius's _Nucleus Historiae Ecclesiasticae_, 1676, and in the _Appendix Addendorum_, 1678, 4to. With regard to the MSS. used in the formation of the text of the _Complutensian Polyglot_, Mr. Jebb will find an account of their discovery in a letter addressed by Dr. James Thompson to the editor of _The Biblical Review_. See also _The Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_ for April 1847. R.G. _Complutensian Polyglot_.--The following extract from "The Prospectus of a Critical Edition of the New Testament," by the learned Mr. S. Prideaux Tregelles, affords a satisfactory reply to Mr. Jebb's query, No. 14. p. 212.:--