If I should die as it may hap, My greauve shall be under the green yeal tap; In voulded earmes there wool us lie, Cheek by jowl, my dog and I. The foregoing is a very famous old Gloucestershire ballad, corrected according to the fragments of a MS. found in the Speech-house of Dean several centuries ago, and used to be sung at the meetings of the Gloucestershire Society, a charitable institution held at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. Both these ballads are literally copied from the Broadsides. H. G. D. THE CAXTON COFFER. The biographers of Caxton may be divided into two classes; those who wrote before the publication of the _Typographical antiquities_, A.D. 1749, and those who wrote after that date. The same distinction may be made with regard to those who have incidentally noticed his life or publications. The principal writers of the first period are Leland, Bale, Stow, Pits, Fuller, Nicolson, Middleton, Birch, Oldys, Lewis and Tanner. At the present moment, I must content myself with a critical remark on the mode in which Leland has been so often quoted. The first passage contains the expression to which I allude. (1.) "Gulielmus Caxodunus, _Angliæ prototypographus_, hæc, aut similia his, Anglice refert" etc. (2.) "Quanquam priusquam id, quod modo sum pollicitus, præstitero, non alienum meo erit instituto palam facere _Gulielmum Caxodunum_, hominem nec indiligentem, nec indoctum, _et quem constat primum_ LONDINI _artem exercuisse typographicam_, Chauceri opera, quotquot vel pretio vel precibus comparare potuit, in unum volumen collegisse." The incidental expression _Angliæ prototypographus_ has been considered as a proof that Leland discredited the typographical claims of Oxford. The second quotation conveys an opposite notion. I tax no one, however, with unfairness, but ascribe the oversight to reliance on the _Index scriptorum à Joanne Lelando laudatorum_, which refers only to the first quotation. BOLTON CORNEY. Minor Notes. _Note on the Duration of Reigns._--As Mr. Clinton and others have endeavoured to invalidate Newton's conclusions with respect to the length of reigns, by examples from modern history, I have made a Note on that subject which may be of use. Taking in the times which may be supposed most to resemble those to which the question refers, we find in England, from Alfred to the Conquest, 13 kings in 166 years: From 1066 to 1272 8 kings 206 yrs. From 1272 to 1837 27 " 565 " An average on the whole of 19-1/2 years. If we add the time from Egbert, 5 kings, 73 yrs., the average becomes 19 yrs. The average from 1272 is only 21. In France 559 to 814 18 kings 255 yrs. " 814 1830 47 " 1016 " Average 19-1/2. Average from 814 only 21-1/2. In Germany 840 to 1835 50 emper. 995 yrs. Average not 20. Turks 1299 to 1808, 30 sover. 509 yrs. Average 17.