which
Shakspeare used the word "strain'd:"

"_Portia._ Then _must_ the Jew be merciful.
_Shylock._ On what _compulsion_ must I? tell me that.
_Portia._ The quality of mercy is not strain'd," &c.

that is, there is nothing forced, nothing of compulsion in the quality of
mercy.

Johnson gives: "To strain, to force, to constrain."

Q. D.

L. S. will find his difficulty solved by Johnson's Dictionary (a work to
which he himself refers), if he compares the following quotation with
Portia's reply to Shylock:--

"He talks and plays with Fatima, but his mirth
Is forced and strained," &c.

EGDUF.

[We have also to thank, for replying to this Query, our correspondents
R. F., R. T. G. H., P. K., J. H. KERSHAW, C. M., Y., E. N. W., C. D.
LAMONT, and also MR. SNOW, who remarks that "actresses rarely commence
this speech satisfactorily, or give, or seem to feel, the point of
contrast between the _must_ and _no must_, the _compulsion_ and _no
compulsion_. In fact, the whole of it is usually mouthed out, without
much reference to Shylock or the play, as if it had been learned by
rote from a school speech-book. Hazlitt says, in his _Characters of
Shakspeare's Plays_, 'The speech about mercy is very well, but there
are a thousand finer ones in Shakspeare.'"]

_Headings of Chapters in English Bibles_ (Vol. iii., p. 141.).--The
summaries of the contents of each chapter, as found in the authorised
editions of our English Bible, were prefixed by Miles Smith, bishop of
Gloucester, one of the original translators, who also wrote the preface,
and, in conjunction with Bishop Bilson, finally reviewed the whole work.
Your correspondent will find full answers to his other queries in
Stackhouse and Tomlins; in Johnson's _History of English Translations_,
&c.; and in T. H. Horne's _Introduction_.

COWGILL.

* * * * *

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

The author of _The History of the Church of Rome to the end of the
Episcopate of Damasus_, A.D. 384, which has just been published by Messrs.
Longman, well remarks, "that he is not aware that there is any account of
the Church of Rome, framed on the simple and obvious principle of merely
collecting and arranging the testimony of history with regard to facts, and
so presented to the reader as that he should leave a right to believe that
when he has read what is before him, he {270}