itle-page, can be readily procured from the booksellers in London;
whereas the English original is not to be met with. In like manner,
Macaulay's _Essays_ were collected and published first in America; and
so with Praed's _Poems_, and many others. Uncle Sam has lately
announced collections of Dr. Maginn's and De Quincey's scattered Essays,
for which we owe him our most grateful acknowledgments.

J. M. B.

Tunbridge Wells.

_Odd Mistake._--

"One of the houses on Mount Ephraim formerly belonged to _Judge
Jeffries_, a man who has rendered his name infamous in the annals
of history _by the cruelty and injustice he manifested in presiding
at the trial of King Charles I._"--_Descriptive Sketches of
Tunbridge Wells_, by John Britton, F.S.A., p. 59.

Voila comment on fait l'histoire!

J. M. B.

Tunbridge Wells.

_Thomas Shakspeare._--In the year 1597 there resided in Lutterworth in
Leicestershire, only distant from Stratford-upon-Avon, the birth-town of
Shakspeare, a very few miles, one _Thomas Shakspeare_, who appears to
have been employed by William Glover, of Hillendon in Northamptonshire,
gentleman, as his agent to receive for him and give an acquittance for a
considerable sum of money.

Having regard to the age in which this Thomas Shakspeare lived, coupled
with his place of residence, is it not probable he was a relative of the
great Bard?

CHARLECOTE.

_Early Winters._--I heard it mentioned, when in St. Petersburg very
lately, that they have never had so early a commencement of winter as
this last year since the French were at Moscow.

I find in accounts of the war, that the winter _commenced_ then (1812)
on November 7, N. S., with deep snow. Last year (1852) it commenced at
St. Petersburg on October 16, N. S., as noted in my diary, with snow,
which has remained on the ground ever since, accompanied at times with
_very_ severe frost.

Query: Can November 7, N. S., be the correct date? If it is, this last
winter's commencement must be unprecedented; as I have always heard it
remarked, that the winter began unusually early the year the French were
at Moscow.

I may mention as a note, that by the last accounts from Russia, they say
the ice in the Gulf of Finland was four and a half feet thick.

J. S. A.

Old Broad Street.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

SATIRICAL PLAYING CARDS.

I have lately been much interested in a pack of cards, comple