etty certain, however, that this masculine occupation was not
the one followed by "Marie Fraunceys de Suthwerk!"

Pray accept this "Reply" for what it is worth. Perhaps I might have done
better by meeting Mr. John R. Fox's "Query" (No. 14. p. 216.) with
another. Should not the designation of Marie F. be _Spinster_ instead of
Shipster?

MARK ANTONY LOWER.

Lewes, Feb. 2.

_Sparse_.--Permit me to refer your correspondent "C. FORBES" for a reply
to his query, p. 215. of your last Number, to the article "Americanism"
in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_, the author of which observes:--

"_Sparse_ is, for any thing we know, a new word, and well applied;
the Americans say a _sparse_ instead of a scattered population; and
we think the term has a more precise meaning than scattered, and is
the proper correlative of _dense_."

In the _Imperial Dictionary_ (avowedly based upon Webster's American
work, which I cannot at this moment refer to in its original form), the
word in question is given both as an adjective and as a verb, and the
derivatives "sparsed," "sparsedly," "sparsely," and "sparseness," are
also admitted. The reference given for the origin of "sparse" is to the
Latin "_sparsus_, scattered, from _spargo_;" and the definitions are, 1.
"Thinly scattered, set or planted here and there; as, a _sparse_
population:" and, 2., as a botanical term, "not opposite, not alternate,
nor in any regular order; applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, &c."

J.T. STANESBY.

_Cosmopolis--Complutensian Polyglot_.--Though in considerable haste, I
must send replies to the fourth and eighth queries of my friend Mr.
Jebb, No. 14. p. 213.

_Cosmopolis_ was certainly Amsterdam. That the _Interpretationes
paradoxae quatuor Evangeliorum_, by Christophorus Christophori Sandius,
were there printed, appears from this writer's _Bibliotheca
Anti-Trinitarionum_, p. 169., Freistad, 1684. I may add that "Coloniae"
signifies "Amstelaedami" in the title-page of Sandius's _Nucleus Historiae
Ecclesiasticae_, 1676, and in the _Appendix Addendorum_, 1678, 4to.

With regard to the MSS. used in the formation of the text of the
_Complutensian Polyglot_, Mr. Jebb will find an account of their
discovery in a letter addressed by Dr. James Thompson to the editor of
_The Biblical Review_. See also _The Irish Ecclesiastical Journal_ for
April 1847.

R.G.

_Complutensian Polyglot_.--The following extract from "The Prospectus of
a Critical