st and escape his
ken. Thus:

"In that respect, too, like a loving child,
Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring,
Because kind Nature doth require it so."
_Tit. And._, Act V. Sc. 3.

"Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up for joy."
_Rom. and Jul._, Act III. Sc. 2.

Many of the phrases of the ancient tongues, in which the eye bears a part,
have been handed down to us, and are still preserved in our own. My space,
however, forbids me to do more than allude to them; but there is one very
forcible expression in the Hebrew [Hebrew: `AYIN B`AYIN], literally, eye in
eye, which we render much less forcibly--face to face. The Welsh have
preserved it exactly in their _llygad yn llygad_. Indeed, this is not the
only instance in which they are proud of having handed down the Hebrew
idiom in all its purity. Shakspeare twice uses the old phrase:

"Since then my office hath so far prevailed,
That face to face, and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted."--_Hen. V._, Act V. Sc. 2.

And in _Tro. and Cres._, Act III. Sc. 3; but it appears now to be obsolete.

Before concluding, I cannot help noticing, in connexion with this subject,
the Old English term "the apple of the eye." I am unable to trace it beyond
the Anglo-Saxon. The Teutonic _sehandes ougen_, _pupilla oculi_, is totally
distinct; _seha_ being merely _medius punctus oculi_, whence _sehan_,
_videre_. In the Semitic languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, the
origin of the term is the same, and gives no clue to the meaning of the
Saxon term. Thus, in the Hebrew [Hebrew: 'IYSHWON], dim. of [Hebrew:
'IYSH], _homunculus_, the small image of a person seen in the eye. In
Arabic it is the _man_ or _daughter of the eye_. In Greek we have [Greek:
kore, korasion, korasidon]; and in Latin, _pupa, pupula, pupilla_.

Has any light been thrown on the Anglo-Saxon term? Can it be that _iris_,
not the pupil, is taken to represent an apple? The pupil itself would then
be the eye of the apple of the eye.

H. C. K.

---- Rectory, Hereford.

* * * * *

GOSSIPING HISTORY--DE QUINCEY'S ACCOUNT OF HATFIELD.

In proof of the severity with which the laws against forgery were enforced,
I have been referred to the case of Hatfield, hanged in 1803 for forging
franks. It is given very fully in Mr. De Quincey's "Literary