tement
here quoted from the _Delices de la Grande Bretagne_ is scarcely likely to
be correct. We all know how prone foreigners are to misapprehension, and
therefore, how unsafe it is to trust to their observations. In this case,
may not the description of the _Bibliotheque Publique_, which was open
night and morning, during the sittings of the courts of justice, have
originated merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in Westminster-hall?

J. G. N.

_The Ten Commandments_ (Vol. iii., p. 166.).--Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242.,
2nd edition, Oxford, 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue taken from an old
MS. In this the first two commandments are embodied in one. Leighton, in
his _Exposition of the Ten Commandments_, when speaking on the point of the
manner of dividing them, refers in a vague manner to Josephus and Philo.

R. V.

_Sitting crosslegged to avert Evil_ (Vol. ii.,p. 407.).--Browne says:--

"To set crosselegg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together,
is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same
conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as is observable from
Pliny: 'Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim;' and also from
Athenaeus, that it was an old veneficious practice."--_Vulg. Err._, lib.
v. cap. xxi. Sec. 9.

ACHE.

_George Steevens_ (Vol. iii., p. 119.).--A. Z. wishes to know whether a
memoir of George Steevens, the Shakspearian commentator, was ever
published, and what has become of the manuscripts.

I believe the late Sir James Allen Park wrote his life, but whether for
public or private circulation I cannot tell.

The late George Steevens had a relative, a Mrs. Collinson, and daughters
who lived with him at Hampstead, and with him when he died, in Jan. 1800.
Miss Collinson married a Mr. Pyecroft, whose death, I think, is in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for this month: perhaps the Pyecroft family may give
information respecting the manuscripts.

"The house he lived in at Hampstead, called the Upper Flask, was
formerly a place of public entertainment near the summit of Hampstead
Hill. Here Richardson sends his Clarissa in one of her escapes from
Lovelace. Here, too, the celebrated Kit-Cat Club used to meet in the
summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, the no less
celebrated George Steevens lived and died."--Vide Park's _Hampstead_,
pp. 250. 352.

I just recollect Mr. Steevens, who was very