(_On her charging the Author with writing too much on Love._) 'Tis true my Muse to love inclines, And wreaths of Cypria's myrtle twines; Quits all aspiring, lofty views, And chaunts what Nature's gifts infuse: Timid to try the mountain's* height, Beneath she strays, retir'd from sight, Careless, culling amorous flowers; Or quaffing mirth in Bacchus' bowers. When first she raised her simplest lays In Cupid's never-ceasing praise, The God a faithful promise gave-- That never should she feel Love's stings, Never to burning passion be a slave, But feel the purer joy _thy_ friendship brings. * Parnassus!" If you think this fruit of a research into a now almost forgotten work, which however contains many matters of interest (among the rest, "The Baviad of Gifford"), worth insertion, please put it among "N. & Q.;" it may incite others to look more closely, and perhaps trace other "disjecta membra poetae." A. B. R. Belmont. * * * * * NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS. (_Continued from_ p. 544.) Let no one say that a tithe of these instances would have sufficed. Whoever thinks so, little understands the vitality of error. Most things die when the brains are out: error has no brains, though it has more heads than the hydra. Who could have believed it possible that after Steevens's heaped-up proofs in support of the authentic reading, "_carded_ his state" (_King Henry IV._, Act III. Scene 2.), Warburton's corruption, _'scarded_, i. e. _discarded_, was again to be foisted into the text on the authority of some nameless and apocryphal commentator? Let me be pardoned if I prefer Shakspeare's genuine text, backed by the masterly illustrations of his ablest glossarist, before the wishy-washy adulterations of Nobody: and as a small contribution to his abundant avouchment of the original reading, the underwritten passage may be flung in, by way of make-weight: "_Carded_ his state (says King Henry), _Mingled_ his royaltie with carping fooles." "Since which it hath been and is his daily practice, either to broach doctrinas novas et peregrinas, new imaginations never heard of before, or to revive the old and new dress them. And these--for that by themselves they will not utter--_to mingle and to card_ with the Apostles' doctrine, &c., that at the least yet he may so vent them."--One of the Sermons upon the Second Commandment, preached in the Parish Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, on the Ninth of January, A.D. MDXCII.: Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. p. 55. _Lib. Ang.-Cath. Theol._ * * * * *