Now, according to the depreciation tables of M. Dennis, this condition obtained in 1483, under Charles VIII., at which time Budæus was actually living, having been born in 1467; but from other circumstances I am induced to believe that the solidus gallicus mentioned by him was coined by Louis XII. in 1498, at which time the quantity of pure silver was fourfold and a half that of the present day. So much in answer to C. W. B.'s Query; now for its relation to Shakspeare's text, with which however the "siclus" in question has nothing in common except the name; since the "sickles," so beautifully alluded to by Isabella, in _Measure for Measure_ (Act II. Sc. 2.), were _sicli aurei_, "of the tested gold." But I have designedly used the word _sickle_ as the English representative of the Latin _siclus_ (Gallicè _cicle_), because it is the original word of Shakspeare, which was subsequently, most unwarrantably and unwisely, altered by the commentators to _shekels_ in conformity with the Hebraicised word of our scriptural translation.[2] Hence it is that "sickles" has come to be looked upon as _a corruption of the text_; and "shekels" as a very clever _conjectural emendation_! We retain _sickle_, Anglicè for _sicula_, a scythe; but we refuse it to Shakspeare for a word almost identical in sound--_siculus_, or siclus! The real corruption has been that of Shakspeare's commentators, not his printers'; and I hope that some future editor of his plays will have the courage to permit him to spell this, and other proper names, in his own way. For how can his text continue to be an example of his language, if his words may be altered to suit the _précieuse_ fashion of subsequent times? A. E. B. Leeds. [Footnote 2: [Our correspondent of course alludes to King James's translation. Upon reference to Sir Frederic Madden's admirable edition of Wickliffe's Bible, we find A. E. B.'s position directly corroborated: "The erthe that thou askist is worth foure hundryd _sicles_ of silver."--Genesis, xxiii. 15. And in Exodus, xxx. 13., "A _sicle_ that is a nounce hath twenti half scripples;" or, as in the second edition, "A _sicle_ hath twenti halpens."--ED.]] A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT "DULCARNON." (Vol. i., p. 254.; Vol. v., pp. 252-3.) By the aid of Dr. Adam Littleton and your correspondent A. N., all future editors of Chaucer and glossarists are helped over this _pons asinorum_: the word being evidently nothing more than the adoption of the Arabic DHU 'LKARNEIN, i.e. _two-horned_; and hence, as the reputed son of Jupiter Ammon, Alexander's oriental name, Iscander _Dhu 'lkarnein_, i.e. Bicornis.