_Vertue's MSS_. (No. 20. p. 319.) were in Horace Walpole's possession, bought by him, I think, of Vertue's widow; and his _Anecdotes of Painting_ were chiefly composed from them, as he states, with great modesty, in his dedication and his preface. I do not see in the Strawberry-Hill Catalogue any notice of "Vertue's MSS.," though some vols. of his collection of engravings were sold. C. _Lines attributed to Tom Brown_.--In a book entitled _Liber Facetiarum, being a Collection of curious and interesting Anecdotes_, published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by D. Akenhead & Sons, 1809, the passage attributed to Tom Brown by your correspondent "J.T." is given to Zacharias Boyd. The only reference given as authority for the account is the initials H.B. "Zacharias Boyd, whose bust is to be seen over the entrance to the Royal College in Glasgow, while Professor in that university, translated the Old and New Testament into Scotch Metre; and, from a laudable zeal to disseminate religious knowledge among the lower classes of the community, is said to have left a very considerable sum to defray the expense of the said work, which, however, his executors never printed." After a few specimens, the account goes on "But the highest flight of his Muse appears in the following _beautiful Alexandrine_: "And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal? That would not let the children of Israel, their wives And their little ones, their flocks and their herds, go Out into the wilderness forty days To eat the Pascal. "H.B." Speaking of Zachariah Boyd, Granger says, (vol. ii. p. 379.): "His translation of the Scripture in such uncouth verse as to amount to burlesque, has been often quoted, and the just fame of a benefactor to learning has been obscured by that cloud of miserable rhymes. Candour will smile at the foible, but applaud the man. "Macure, in his account of Glasgow, p. 223., informs us he lived in the reign of Charles I." H.I. Sheffield, March 9. 1850. {373} _Passage in Frith's Works_ (No. 20. p. 319).--This passage should be read, as I suppose, "Ab inferiori ad suum superius confuse distribui." It means that there would be confusion, if what is said distributively or universally of the lower, should be applied distributively or universally to the higher; or, in other words, if what is said universally of a species, should be applied universally to the genus that contains that and other species: e.g., properties that are universally found in the human species will not be found universally in the genus Mammalis, and universal properties of Mammalia wil not be universal over the animal kingdom. T.J.