as sewn up in the skirt
of a saddle. The story may or may not be true; this authority for it
is not first-rate. The Quarterly reviewer, in transcribing from Mr.
Cunningham's book the passage in Morrice's _Life of Lord Orrery_,
introduces it by saying,--"Cromwell, in a letter to Lord Broghill,
narrates circumstantially how he and Ireton intercept, &c." This is
a mistake; there is no letter from Cromwell to Lord Broghill on the
subject. (Lord Broghill was Earl of Orrery after the Restoration.)
Such a letter would be excellent authority for the story. The mistake,
which is the Quarterly reviewer's, and not Mr. Cunningham's, is of
some importance.

C.H.

_Lady Morgan and Curry_.--An anecdote in the last number of the
_Quarterly Review_, p. 477., "this is the first set down you have
given me to-day," reminds me of an incident in Dublin society
some quarter of a century ago or more. The good-humoured and
accomplished--Curry (shame to me to have forgotten his christened name
for the moment!) had been engaged in a contest of wit with Lady Morgan
and another female _celebrite_, in which Curry had rather the worst
of it. It was the fashion then for ladies to wear very short sleeves;
and Lady Morgan, albeit not a young woman, with true provincial
exaggeration, wore none, a mere strap over her shoulders. Curry was
walking away from her little coterie, when she called out, "Ah! come
back Mr. Curry, and acknowledge that you are fairly beaten." "At any
rate," said he, turning round, "I have this consolation, you can't
laugh at me in your sleeve!"

SCOTUS.

_Sir Walter Scott and Erasmus_.--Has it yet been noticed that the
picture of German manners in the middle ages given by Sir W. Scott, in
his _Anne of Geierstein_ (chap. xix.), is taken (in some parts almost
verbally) from Erasmus' dialogue, _Diversoria_? Although Sir Walter
mentions Erasmus at the beginning of the chapter, he is totally silent
as to any hints he may have got from him; neither do the notes to my
copy of his works at all allude to this circumstance.

W.G.S.

_Parallel Passages_.--A correspondent in Vol. i., p. 330, quoted some
parallels to a passage in Shakspeare's _Julius Caesar_. Will you allow
me to add another, I think even more striking than those he cited. The
full passage in Shakspeare is,

"There is a tide in the affairs of man,
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their lives
Is bound in shallows a