y the courts as a vulgar error, and handed over to the
exclusive jurisdiction of the legal antiquaries and collectors of the Juris
amoenitates.

E. SMIRKE.

"_Fronte capillata_," &c. (vol. iii., pp. 8. 43.).--The couplet is much
older than G. A. S. seems to think. The author is Dionysius
Cato,--"Catoun," as Chaucer calls him--in his book, _Distichorum de
Moribus_, lib. ii. D. xxvi.:

"Rem tibi quam nosces aptam, dimittere noli:
Fronte capillata, post est Occasio calva."
_Corp. Poet. Lat._, Frankfurt, 1832, p. 1195.

The history of this Dionysius Cato is unknown; and it has been hotly
disputed whether he were a Heathen or Christian; but he is _at least_ as
old as the fourth century of the Christian era, being mentioned by
Vindicianus, chief physician in ordinary to the emperor, in a letter to
Valentinian I., A.D. 365. In the illustrations of _The Baptistery_, Parker,
Oxford, 1842, which are re-engraved from the originals in the _Via Vitae
Eternae_, designed by Boetius a Bolswert, the figure of "Occasion" is always
drawn with the hair hanging loose in front, according to the distich.

E. A. D.

_Time when Herodotus wrote_ (vol. ii., p. 405.; Vol. iii., p. 30.)--The
passage in Herodotus (i. 5.) is certainly curious, and had escaped my
notice, until pointed out by your correspondent. I am unable at present to
refer to Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology_;
but I doubt whether the reading of the poem or title, in Aristotle's
_Rhetoric_ (II. 9. Sec. 1.), has received much attention. In my forthcoming
translation of the "Pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer" prefixed to the
_Odysseia_ (Bohn's _Classical Library_), note 1., I have thus given it:--

"This is the exposition of the historical researches of Herodotus of
_Thurium_," &c.

Now Aristotle makes no remark on the passage as being unusual, and it
therefore inclines me to think that, at the time of that philosopher and
critic, both editions were in use.

The date of the building of Thurium is B.C. 444, and Herodotus was there at
its foundation, being then about forty years of age. Most likely he had
published a smaller edition of this book before that time, bearing the
original date from Halicarnassus, which he revised, _enlarged_, corrected,
and _partly re-wrote_ at Thurium. I think this would not be difficult to
prove; and I would add that this retouching would be found more apparent at
the beginning of the volume than else