they had been gathered from the neighbouring field of
Naseby. A similar story prevails at Ripon, viz. that the death-heads and
cross-bones, which are arranged in the crypt under the Minster, are the
grisly gleanings of some battle-field.

Now, if these, and other like collections, were really made after
battles which took place during any of the civil wars of England, some
details would not be unworthy of the notice of the picturesque
historian; _e.g._, was it the custom in those unhappy days to disinter,
after a time, the slightly-buried corpses, and deposit the bones in the
consecrated vault?--or was this the accidental work of some antiquarian
sexton of the "Old Mortality" species?--or was the pious attention
suggested by the ploughman's later discoveries--

"Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro," &c.?

Any report from the places where there happen to be bone-houses,
together with the local tradition assigning their origin, would I think,
throw light on an interesting and rather obscure subject.

Ecclesfield, Dec. 31. 1849.

ALFRED GATTY

* * * * *

CONTRADICTIONS IN DON QUIXOTE; AND QUERY AS TO THE BUSCAPIE.

In answer to the question of "MELANION" (in No. 5 p. 73.), it may be
sufficient to refer him to the Spanish editions with notes, viz. that of
Pellicer in 1800; the 4th edition of the Spanish Academy in 1819; and
that of D. Diego Clemencin in 1833, where he will find the discrepancies
he mentions pointed out. In the first edition of 1605 there was another
instance in the same chapter, which Cervantes corrected in the edition
of 1608, but overlooked the other two. It was one of those lapses, _quas
incuria fudit_, which great writers as well as small are subject to.
Clemencin laughs at De los Rios for thinking it a chracteristic of great
geniuses so to mistake; and at the enthusiasm of some one else, who said
that he preferred the Don Quixote with the defects to the Don Quixote
without them.

Having answered one query, I presume I may be permitted to propose one,
in which I feel much interested.

Is the recently published BUSCAPIE the work of Cervantes? We have now
been favoured with two translations, one by Thomasina Ross, the other by
a member of the University of Cambridge, under the title of _The Squib,
or Searchfoot_; the latter I have read with some attention, but not
having been able to procure the Spanish original, I should be glad to
have the opinion of s