e
hall, which led to the interference of the master, Dr. Prideaux, and
to the abolition of the practice in Exeter College. The custom is
there said to have been of great antiquity in the college.

The authority cited by Mr. Martyn for the story is a Mr. Stringer, who
was a confidential friend of Lord Shaftesbury's, and made collections
for a Life of him; and it probably comes from Lord Shaftesbury
himself.

C.

_Byron and Tacitus_.--Although Byron is, by our school rules, a
forbidden author, I sometimes contrive to indulge myself in reading
his works by stealth. Among the passages that have struck my (boyish)
fancy is the couplet in "_The Bride of Abydos_" (line 912),--

"Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease!
He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace!"

Engaged this morning in a more legitimate study, that of Tacitus, I
stumbled upon this passage in the speech of Galgacus (Ag. xxx.),--

"Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem adpellant."

Does not this look very much like what we call "cabbaging?" If you
think so, by adding it to the other plagiarisms of the same author,
noted in some of your former numbers, you will confer a great honour
on

A SCHOOLBOY.

_The Pardonere and Frere_.--If Mr. J.P. Collier would, at some leisure
moment, forward, for your pages, a complete list of the variations
from the original, in Smeeton's reprint of _The Pardonere and Frere_,
he would confer a favour which would be duly appreciated by the
possessors of that rare tract, small as their number must be; since,
in my copy (once in the library of Thomas Jolley, Esq.), there is
an autograph attestation by Mr. Rodd, that "there were no more than
twenty copies printed."

G.A.S.

_Mistake in Gibbon_ (No. 21. p. 341.).--The passage in Gibbon has an
error more interesting than the mere mistake of the author. That a
senator should make a motion to be repeated and chanted by the rest,
would be rather a strange thing; but the tumultuous acclamations
chanted by the senators as parodies of those in praise of Commodus,
which had been usual at the Theatres (Dio), were one thing; the vote
or decree itself, which follows, is another.

There are many errors, no doubt, to be found in Gibbon. I will mention
one which may be entertaining, though I dare say Mr. Milman has found
it out. In chap. 47. (and _see_ note 26.), Gibbon was too happy to
make the most of the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia, by a
Christian mob at Al