"There is an anonymous work deserving of some notice, entitled _A Short Critical Review of the Political Life of Oliver Cromwell_. The title professes that it was written by a gentleman of the Middle Temple, but there is reason to believe that it proceeded from the pen of the learned Bishop Gibson." It would seem, therefore, by these statements, that two different lives of the Great Protector have been ascribed to Gibson. Query, Did Gibson ever write a life of Cromwell; and if so, which is it? It is well worth knowing which Gibson did write, if he wrote one at all, for he was connected with the Cromwell family, and, what is of more consequence, a learned, liberal man, not given to lying, so that his book probably contains more truth than any of the other Cromwell biographies of that time. DRYASDUST. 79. _English Translation of Alcon._--Is there any translation of _Alcon_ by Baldisare Castiglione? The _Lycidas_ of Milton is a splendid paraphrase of it. The parallel passages are to be found in (I think) No. 47. of the _Classical Journal_, published formerly by Valpy. The prototypes of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso are at the beginning of Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. Thus three of Milton's early poems cannot be termed wholly original. ÆGROTUS. Replies. JOHN BODLEY. (Vol. iv., p. 59.) John Bodley is a name that ought not to be passed over without due reverence. He not only fostered the translation of the Genevan Bible, but was specially interested in its circulation throughout England. Neither Fox, Burnet, or Strype, Mr. Todd, or Mr. Whittaker give us any particular information respecting him. Lewis glances at him as _one_ John Bodley; and Mr. Townley, in his valuable _Biblical Literature_, after some notice of Whittingham, Gilby, Sampson, &c., closes by saying, "Of John Bodleigh no account has been obtained." This good and pious man was the father of the celebrated Sir Thomas Bodley. He was born at Exeter, and according to the statement of his son (_Autobiography_, 4to., Oxf. 1647),-- "In the time of Queen Mary, after being cruelly threatened and narrowly observed by those that maliced his religion, for the safety of himself and my mother (formerly Miss Joan Hone, an heiress in the hundred of Ottery St. Mary), who was wholly affected as my father, knew no way so secure as to fly into Germany; where, after a while, he found means to call over my mother, with all his children and family, when he settled for a while at Wesel, in Cleveland, and from thence we removed to the town of Frankfort. Howbeit, we made no long tarriance in either of these towns, for that my father had resolved to fix his abode in the city of Geneva, where, as far as I remember, the English Church consisted of some hundred members."