On this point I hope some of your more learned correspondents will favour us with their opinion. There has also been recently sent me by a friend an extract from the "Birch Collection," British Museum (Add. MSS. 4161.), being transcripts of a _Table Book of Robert Sidney, second Earl of Leicester_, which contradicts the inscription in some particulars: but Lord Leicester writes in a loose and apparently not very authentic style. He states, on the authority of a "Mr. Harnet," that the Countess of Desmond came to petition "the Queen" (Elizabeth), and not King James; and quotes Sir W. Raleigh (on memory) as saying that he (Sir W. R.) saw her in England in 1589. He also talks of her death as occurring at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and as being caused by a fall from a "nutt-tree." I do not think, indeed, that much weight should attach to these notes of Lord Leicester; but it is fair to give all that comes to light, whether it makes against or for the authenticity of what one wishes to establish. P. FITZGERALD, KNIGHT OF KERRY. Union Club, London. SHAKSPEARE'S SICKLE OR SHEKEL. (_Value of Solidus Gallicus?_) (Vol. v., p. 277.) I undertake to answer C. W. B.'s Query with the greater readiness, because it affords me an opportunity of upholding that which has ever been the leading object in every amendment of Shakspeare's text advocated by me, viz., the unravelling and explaining, rather than the alteration, of the original. Perhaps it is with a similar aim that C. W. B. wishes to investigate the value of "siclus;" if so, he must pardon me if I forestall him. I see no difficulty in the passage which he asks to have construed; its meaning is this: "The sacred sickle (or shekel) was equivalent to an Attic tetradrachma, which Budæus estimated at 14 Gallic solidi, or thereabouts; for the didrachma was seven solidi, since the single drachma made three and a half solidi, _less_ a denier Tournois." Which is as much as to say, that the sickle equalled fourteen solidi, less four deniers; or 13-2/3 solidi. But owing to the rapid declension in the value of French coin after the tenth century, it is manifestly impossible to assign a value to these solidi unless the precise date of their coinage were known. A writer may, of course, allude to coin indefinitely precedent to his own time. In the present case, however, we may, as a matter of curiosity, _analytically_ approximate to a result in this way:-- The drachma is now known to have contained about 65 grains of pure silver, consequently the tetradrachma contained 260 grains. The present franc contains about 70 grains of pure silver, and consequently the sol, or 20th part, is 3-1/2 grains. This last, multiplied by 13-2/3, produces about 48 grains. But the weight of the tetradrachma is 260 grains; therefore the sol with which the comparison was made must have contained upwards of fivefold its present value in pure silver.