[The saying owes its rise to the celebrated farce of _The Rehearsal_, written by _Villiers, Duke of Buckingham_, with the assistance of Butler, Spratt, and others, in order to correct the public taste by holding up the rhyming tragedies to ridicule. It is said that no less than ten years were employed in collecting and polishing the materials. The original hero was Davenant, satirized under the name of Bilboa; but Dryden eventually became its Bayes. The allusion referred to by our correspondent is to Act II. Sc. 2., where the stage direction is, "Enter the two Kings, hand in hand,"--where they probably did so--"smelling at one nosegay," although no such direction occurs; or to Act V. Sc. 1., "The two right Kings of Brentford descend, in the clouds, singing, in white garments; and three Fidlers sitting before them in green."] _Meaning of V. D. M._--In the church of old St. Chads, Shrewsbury, there is a tablet to a celebrated Nonconformist minister, Rev. Job Orton, after whose name (which is twice mentioned) occurs the (to me) uncommon suffix or designation V.D.M written thus--Rev. Job Orton, V.D.M. "Vir dignus memoriæ," or "Veri Dei minister," &c., &c., may be suggested. All I want to know is, whether it represents any recognised formula. G. R. M. [This suffix is _Verbi Dei Minister_, Minister of the Word of God.] Replies. ANACHRONISMS OF PAINTERS. (Vol. iii., pp. 369. 517.; Vol. iv., p. 150.) I have read D'Israeli's list of the above, to which J. E. alludes in Vol. iii., p. 369., and they are certainly well-known glaring instances of the inconsistencies and absurdities into which artists may be led by ignorance and total want of good taste and feeling: those given by J. E., at the same page, are also unhappy examples. I cannot, however, think that the instance, given by G. T. R. in Vol. iii., p. 517., deserves to be placed in the same category: the subject is, The Woman taken in Adultery; and G. T. R. complains of the anachronism of Steenwyk's having represented our Saviour as writing on the ground in _Dutch_. But this is not necessarily the result of ignorance, and is justifiable on the ground of making the painting more intelligible to his countrymen. For the same reason the writing is often in Latin; and, in fact, often as the subject has been painted, I do not recollect any instance of the proper language being used. In making the scene take place in a building of the architecture of the thirteenth century, Steenwyk has erred (if error it be) in company with the best Italian masters. Both Tintoretto and Paul Veronese engraft into their paintings the architecture and other accessories of their own day. In Tintoretto's celebrated picture of the Marriage of Cana, the artist has made use of the drinking vessels and loaves of bread still used in Venice at the present day. In fact, if strict accuracy were contended for, not a single representation by the old masters of this subject, and of the