"Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now!"--Byron, _Childe
Harold_.

5. "Il est plus honteux de se mefier de ses amis que d'en etre
trompe."--De La Rochefoucauld, _Max._ LXXXIV.

"Better trust all, and be deceived,
And weep that trust, and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blessed thy life with true believing!

"Oh! in this mocking world, too fast
The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth:
Better be cheated to the last,
Than lose the blessed hope of truth!"--Mrs. Butler (Fanny Kemble).

6. In "N. & Q.," Vol. iv., p. 435., I cited, as a parallel to Shelley, the
following from Southey's _Doctor_, vol. vi. p. 158.:

"The sense of flying in our sleep might, he thought, probably be the
anticipation or forefeeling of an unevolved power, like an Aurelia's
dream of butterfly motion."

In Spicer's _Sights and Sounds_ (1853), p. 140., is to be found a poem
professing to have been "dictated by the spirit of Robert Southey," on
March 25, 1851, the fourth stanza of which runs as follows:

"The soul, like some sweet flower-bud yet unblown,
Lay tranced in beauty in its silent cell:
The spirit slept, but dreamed of worlds unknown,
_As dreams the chrysalis within its shell_,
Ere summer breathes its spell."

What inference should be drawn from this coincidence for or against the
reality of the "spiritual dictation?"

HARRY LEROY TEMPLE.

* * * * *

{466}

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE.

_Shakspeare's Works with a Digest of all the Readings_ (Vol. viii., pp. 74.
170. 362.).--I am exceedingly obliged to your correspondent ESTE for his
suggestions, and need not say that any sincere advice will be most
respectfully considered. In the second volume of my folio edition of
Shakspeare, I am partially endeavouring to carry out the design to which he
alludes, by giving a digest of all the readings up to the year 1684. How is
it possible to carry out his wish farther with any advantage? I should feel
particularly thankful for a satisfactory reply to the following questions
in relation to this important subject:--1. As many copies of the first and
other folio editions, as well as nearly all the copies of the same quarto
editions, differ from each other, how are these differences to be treated?
What copies are to be taken for texts, and how many copies of each are to
be collated? 2. Are such books as B