_German Tree_ (Vol. viii., p. 619.).--In answer to the inquiry of ZEUS, who wishes to be informed whether this custom was known in England previous to 1836, I beg to refer him to Coleridge's _Friend_, second landing-place, essay iii. (vol. ii. {66} p. 249.), entitled "Christmas within doors in the north of Germany." The passage (apparently from Coleridge's journal) is dated "Ratzeburg, 1799." It is, I think, also extracted in Knight's _Half-hours with the best Authors_. Coleridge went to Germany in 1798 (_Biog. Lit._, vol. i. p. 211. note); but I imagine the passage I refer to did not appear till 1818, when _The Friend_ was published in three volumes (_Biog. Lit._, vol. ii. p. 420.). As the book is so common, I do not think it worth while to copy out the account. ZEUS has by this time, I hope, had a Christmas Yggdrasil in his Olympus. ERYX. _Derivation of the Word "Cash"_ (Vol. viii., p. 386.).--May not the word _cash_ be connected with the Chinese coin bearing that name, which Mr. Martin, in his work on China (vol. i. p. 176.), describes as being-- "The smallest coin in the world, there being about 1000 to 1500 (cash) in a dollar, _i. e._ one-fifth to one-seventh of a farthing." If I am not mistaken, the coin in question is perforated in the centre to permit numbers of the pieces being strung together, payments being made in so many strings of cash. W. W. E. T. 66. Warwick Square, Belgravia. * * * * * Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. _The Poetical Works of John Dryden_, edited by Robert Bell, Vol. I., is the first of what is proposed to be a revised and carefully annotated edition of the English Poets, which is intended to supply what the publisher believes to be an existing want, namely, "a Complete Body of English Poetry, edited throughout with judgment and integrity, and combining those features of research, typographical elegance, and economy of price, which the present age demands." Certainly, half-a-crown a volume fulfils the latter requirement in an extraordinary manner; and there can be little doubt that if the other essentials be as strictly fulfilled, and the collection embraces, as it is intended, not only the works of several poets who have been entirely omitted from previous collections, but those stores of lyrical and ballad poetry in which our literature is so preeminently rich, _The Annotated Edition of the English Poets_ will meet with that extensive sale to which alone the publisher can look for remuneration.