and the Duke afterwards says: "Oh, what may man within him hide, Though angel _on the outward side_." In _Much Ado about Nothing_ (Act I. Sc. 1.), Benedick says: "The body of your discourse is sometimes _guarded_ with fragments, and the _guards_ are but slightly basted on neither." That the epithet "precise" is peculiarly applicable to the assumed sanctity of Angelo, the poet has decided in Act I. Sc. 4., where the Duke describes him thus: "Lord Angelo is _precise_, Stands at a guard with envy, scarce confesses That his blood flows, or that appetite Is more to bread than stone. Hence we shall see, If power change purpose, what our _seemers_ be." "The 'pensive' Angelo" might be admissible, though not so appropriate as "the precise;" but "pensive" is inapplicable to the word "guards," in the sense which the poet everywhere attaches to it. In the second Scene of this Act the Clown says: "Craft being richer than innocency, stands for the _facing_." Your correspondent may be assured that the word he would substitute was never written or printed "penzive" in Shakspeare's time. Mr. Collier's objection, that "precise" "sounds ill as regards the metre, the accent falling on the wrong syllable," has no weight with me, for it is doubtful whether the accent was not placed on the first syllable of "prècise" by the poet and his cotemporaries; but were this not the case, I should still very much prefer the reading proposed by Tieck, and adopted by Mr. Knight, to any other that has been proposed, and have little doubt that it is the true one. S. W. SINGER. Replies to Minor Queries. _Countess of Pembroke's Epitaph_ (Vol. iii., p. 307.).--Let me thank your correspondent MR. GATTY for his information. In order to complete the history of this inscription, it may be stated that though Gifford is silent as to Jonson having any claim to it, yet, by admitting it into his works (vol. viii. p. 337.), he concurs apparently with Whalley and others, in assigning this "delicate epitaph," as Whalley terms it, to Jonson, though it "hath never yet been printed with his works." Gifford considers that Jonson did not "cancel," as it has been alleged, the six lines, "Marble piles let no man raise," but that he possibly never saw them. They certainly contradict the preceding ones; admitting that such a character as the Countess _might_ again appear. These last-mentioned verses, Gifford adds, were copied from the poems of William Herbert Earl of Pembroke, "a humble votary of the Muses." This nobleman, whose amiable character is beautifully drawn by Clarendon, deeply venerated his excellent mother; he, perhaps, could not feel satisfied in leaving her praises to be sung by another poet, and therefore added this well-intended but feeble supplement. J. H. M.