and so it
is with bad puns: he has shown himself an unskilful engineer in the use of
MR. HICKSON's canon, with which he was to have "blown up" MR. HICKSON's
argument and my proposition; with what success may be fairly left to the
judgment of your readers. I will, however, give him another canon, which
may be of use to him on some future occasion: "When a probable solution of
a difficulty is to be found by a parallelism in the poet's pages, it is
better to adopt it than to charge him with a blunder of our own creating."

The allusion to "breaking Priscian's head" reminds one of the remark of a
witty friend on a similar occasion, that "there are some heads not easily
broken, but the owners of them have often the fatuity to run them against
stumbling-blocks of their own making."

S. W. SINGER.

[Footnote 1: _Nursery Rhymes_, edited by James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., F.
R. S., &c.]

* * * * *

DESCENT OF HENRY IV.

(Vol. ii., p. 375.)

Under the head of "Descent of Edward IV.," S. A. Y. asks for information
concerning "a popular, though probably groundless tradition," by which that
prince sought to prove his title to the throne of England. S. A. Y., or his
authority, Professor Millar, is mistaken in ascribing it to Edward IV.--it
was Henry IV. who so sought to establish his claim.

"Upon Richard II.'s resignation ... Henry, Duke of Lancaster, having
then a large army in the kingdom ... it was impossible for any other
title to be asserted with safety, and he became king under the title of
Henry IV. He was, nevertheless, not admitted to the crown until he had
declared that he {121} claimed, not as a conqueror (which he was much
inclined to do), but as a successor descended by right line of the
blood royal.... And in order to this he set up a show of two titles:
the one upon the pretence of being the first of the blood royal of the
entire male line; whereas the Duke of Clarence (Lionel, elder brother
of John of Gaunt) left only one daughter, Philippa: the other, by
reviving an exploded rumour, first propagated by John of Gaunt, that
Edmond Earl of Lancaster (to whom Henry's mother was heiress) was in
reality the elder brother of King Edward I., though his parents, on
account of his personal deformity, had imposed him on the world for the
younger."--Blackstone's _Commentaries_, book i. ch. iii. p. 203. of
edit. 1787.

This