_Funeral Superstition._--A few days ago the body of a gentleman in this neighbourhood was conveyed to the hearse, and while being placed in it, the door of the house, whether from design or inadvertence I know not, was closed before the friends came out to take their places in the coaches. An old lady, who was watching the proceedings, immediately exclaimed, "God bless me! they have closed the door upon the corpse: there will be another death in that house before many days are over." She was fully impressed with this belief, and unhappily this impression has been confirmed. The funeral was on Saturday, and on the Monday morning following a young man, resident in the house, was found dead in bed, having died under the influence of chloroform, which he had inhaled, self-administered, to relieve the pain of toothache or tic-douloureux. Perhaps the superstition may have come before you already; but not having met with it myself, I thought it might be equally new to others. H.J. Sheffield. * * * * * _Folk Lore Rhymes._-- "Find odd-leafed ash, and even-leafed clover, And you'll see your true love before the day's over." If you wish to see your lover, throw salt on the fire every morning for nine days, and say-- "It is not salt I mean to burn, But my true lover's heart I mean to turn; Wishing him neither joy nor sleep, Till he come back to me and speak." "If you marry in Lent, You will live to repent." WEDSECNARF. * * * * * EMENDATION OF A PASSAGE IN THE "TEMPEST." Premising that I should approach the text of our great poet with an almost equal degree of awful reverence with that which characterises his two latest editors, I must confess that I should not have the same respect for evident errors of the printers of the early editions, which they have occasionally shown. In the following passage in the _Tempest_, Act i., Scene 1., this forbearance has not, however, been the cause of the very unsatisfactory state in which they have both left it. I must be indulged in citing at length, that the context may the more clearly show what was really the poet's meaning:-- "Enter FERDINAND _bearing a Log_. "_Fer._ There be some sports are painful; and their labour Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This my mean task Would be as heavy to me, as odious; but The mistress, which I serve, quickens what's dead, And makes my labours pleasures: O! she is Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed; And he's composed of harshness. I must remove Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction: My sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work; and says such business Had never like executor. I forget: But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours; Most busy lest when I do it." Mr. Collier reads these last two lines thus--