fecesti, O Padre santo:
Accettar il papato,
Viver tanto,
Morir di Carnivale
Per destar pianto."

J. Mn.

_Shakspeare a Brass-rubber._--I am desirous to notice, if no commentator
has forestalled me, that Shakspeare, among his many accomplishments, was
sufficiently beyond his age to be a brass-rubber:

"What's on this tomb
I cannot read; the character I'll take with _wax_."

_Timon of Athens_, v. 4.

From the "soft impression," however, alluded to in the next scene, his
"wax" appears rather to have been the forerunner of _gutta percha_ than
of _heel-ball_.

T.S. LAWRENCE.

_California._--In the _Voyage round the World_, by Captain George
Shelvocke, begun Feb. 1719, he says of California (_Harris's
Collection_, vol. i. p. 233.):--

"The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very likely in most of the
valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn it fresh up
to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust; some of
which we endeavoured to purify and wash from the dirt; but
though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it
could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and
universally mingled with common earth, yet we endeavoured to
cleanse and wash the earth from some of it; and the more we did
the more it appeared like gold. In order to be further satisfied
I brought away some of it, which we lost in our confusion in
China."

How an accident prevented the discovery, more than a century back, of
the golden harvest now gathering in California!

E.N.W.

Southwark.

_Mayor of Misrule and Masters of the Pastimes._--the word _Maior_ of
Misrule appears in the Harl. MSS. 2129. as having been on glass in the
year 1591, in Denbigh Church.

"5 Edw. VI., a gentleman (Geo. Ferrars), lawyer, poet, and
historian, appointed by the Council, and being of better calling
than commonly his predecessors, received his commission by the
name of 'Master of the King's Pastimes.'"--_Strutt's Sports and
Pastimes_, 340.

"1578. Edward Baygine, cursitor, clerk for writing and passing
the Queen's leases, 'Comptroller of the Queen's pastimes and
revels,' clerk comptroller of her tents and pavilions,
commissioner of sewers, burgess in Parliament."--Gwillim,
_Heraldry_, 1724 edit.

A.C.

_Roland and Oliver_.--Canciani says there is a figu