"'The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way so chaste.' "'This,' says Malone, 'is taken almost literally from the novel'--when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakspeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. 'The gods above disdaine not to love women beneath. Phoebus liked Daphne; Jupiter Io; and why not I then Fawnia?' The resemblance is anything but literal." It would appear, however, that the passage cited by MR. COLLIER is not the one referred to by Malone. MR. COLLIER's passage is at p. 34. of his edition of the novel; the one Malone evidently had in view is at p. 40., and is as follows:-- "And yet, Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: the heavenly godes have sometime earthly thoughtes. Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bul, Apollo a shepheard: they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a man, appointed to love." E. L. N. _Inscribed Alms-dish._--There is an alms-dish (?) {102} in the possession of a clergyman near Rotherham, in this county, with the following inscription:-- "VREEST . GODT . ONDERHOVEDT . SYN . GEBOEDT . ANNO . 1634." [Fear God (and?) keep his commandments.] Having so lately been so justly reproved by your correspondent, MR. JANUS DOUSA, for judging of Vondel's _Lucifer_ by an apparently unjust review rather than by perusal,--and his beautiful chorus having so fully "established his case,"--I am rather shy of making any remarks upon this inscription: otherwise I would venture (errors excepted) to observe that there _may_ be a mistake in the position of the last three letters of the third word. If MR. DOUSA would kindly inform a _very_ imperfect Dutch scholar whether this sentence is intended as a quotation from Ecclesiastes xii., 13th verse,-- "Vreest Godt ende hout syne geboden;" or whether the third word is from the verb "_onder houden_,"--as _looks_ probable, I shall be greatly obliged to him. The Bible to which I refer is dated 1644.