Nothing is more interesting than these mysteries left in narrative fictions. The story of Gertude, in that first of romances, the _Promessi Sposi_, is a very great instance; and the bad taste, of bringing her up again to the subject of a story by another writer, is so extreme, that I never could look into the book. That Mazoni has left the character, whom he calls the _Innominato_, in mystery, is historical, and not of his own contrivance. I used to think that Scott had left the part of Clara, in _St. Ronan's Well_, intentionally mysterious, as to a most important circumstance; but we learn, from his _Life_, that he meant to have made that circumstance a part of the story, but was prevented by the publisher. It is natural that the altered novel, therefore, should retain some impressions of it. I refer particularly to the latter part of the communications between her and her brother. But the meeting between her and Tyrell in the woods, and their conversation there, I now think, forbid the reader to suspect any thing like what I speak of. In such cases I do not myself wish to know too much about the matter. Sometimes the author wishes you to have the pleasure of guessing, as I think, in Lara; sometimes he means to be more mysterious; sometimes he does not know himself. It would have been idle to have asked Johnson where Ajeet went to. C.B. {325} _Sir William Rider_ (No. 12. p. 186).--"H.F." will find some account of the acts and deeds of Sir Thomas Lake and Dame Mary Lake his wife in the _13th Report on Charities_, p. 280, as to their gifts to Muccleston in Staffordshire. In the _24th Report_, p. 300, as to Drayton in the same county. Dame Mary Lake was also a benefactor to the parish of Little Stanmore, see _9th Report_, p. 271. See also Stow's _Survey_ 593. (ed. 1633.) H.E. _God tempers the Wind_ (No. 14. p. 211.; No. 15. p 236.).--The proverb is French: "A brebis tondue Dieu mesure le vent;" but I cannot tell now where to find it in print, except in Chambaud's _Dictionary_. That is why Sterne puts it into the mouth of Maria. C.B. _Complutensian Polyglot._--"Mr. JEBB" asks (No. 14. p. 213.), "In what review or periodical did there appear a notice of the supposed discovery of the MSS. from which the _Complutensian Polyglot_ was compiled?" He will find an article on this subject in the _Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_ for April, 1847; from which I learn that there was a previous article, by Dr. James Thomson, one of the agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in the _Biblical Review_, a London periodical publication. Dr. Thomson, if I understand the matter aright, professed to have found at Madrid the MSS., so long supposed to have been lost. There is also an article on the same subject by Dr. Bowring, in the _Monthly Repository_, vol. xvi. (1821), p. 203.