Josephus had merely heard this reported, as is evident from his use of the words "it is said." Pausanias, in the _Tour in Greece_ (vii. 26. 6.), has the following observation:-- "A village called Donussa, between Ægira and Pellene, belonging to the Sicyonians, was destroyed by that people. Homer, _say they_, remembered this town in his epic, in the enumeration of the people of Agamemnon, 'Hyperesia then, and Donoessa, rocky town' (Ιλ. β. 573.); but when Peisistratos collected the torn and widely scattered songs of Homer, either he himself, or one of his friends, altered the name through ignorance." Wolf also makes use of this report, liable to the same objections as the above, as one of his proofs. It is even doubtful whether Peisistratos did edit Homer at all; but, under any circumstances, it was not the first edition;[6] for is not Solon represented as the reviser of the Homeric poems? [Footnote 6: Granville Penn, _On the primary Arrangement of the Iliad_; and Appendix B to Mure, vol. i.] Cicero (_de Oratore_, III. 34.) says: "Who is _traditionally_ reported to have had more learning at that time, or whose eloquence received greater ornaments from polite literature than that of Peisistratos? who _is said to have been_ the first that arranged the books of Homer, from their confused state, into that order in which we at present enjoy them." This also is produced as a proof by Wolf, though, for the same reason, it is doubtful. But see Wolf's principal inaccuracies ably enumerated and exposed by Clinton (_F.H._, i. p. 370.). Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as most modern scholars agree, is only calculated "to conduct us to most preposterous conclusions."[7] And this last dictum of Othello's, Mr. Editor, reminds me, that here it would not be preposterous to come to a conclusion for the present, and to close my observations in another paper, where I shall a theory "unfold," which, after the most patient consideration and reconsideration, I am inclined to think the most approximative to the truth. [Footnote 7: _Othello_, Act I. Sc. 3.] KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE. Feb. 16. 1852. FOLK LORE. _Fernseed._--I find in Dr. Jackson's works allusions to a superstition which may interest some of your readers: