MARBLE COATS.

THE Editor of the Loseley MSS. ought to feel thankful when any serious or real error in his volume may be pointed out to him and corrected.

Happy as he feels to have afforded subject of amusement and research even to hypercriticism, which is generally employed in pursuit of nothing, he can hardly plead guilty to the charge so gravely preferred against him. The statement which he made relative to Henry VIII. with eight gentlemen of his privy chamber, repairing to Rochester attired in marble coats, to meet the Lady Ann of Cleves, was derived from the old Chronicles; and that the King affected an incognito visit in a plain habit is evident from their statements; therefore, when the Editor said, narratively, and not strictly glossarially, that these coats were "perhaps of a plain stone-colour," he did not, he hopes, err against matter of fact and common sense. The ingenious critic, P.C.S.S. should, perhaps, have suggested that Mr. Kempe might have said, "coats of sober hue, of a mottled stone colour." The omission of this more precise form of description appears to be the head and front of his offending;" but, had he adopted it, P.C.S.S. would have lost the amusement the passage has afforded him, and the readers of the Gentleman's Magazine the benefit of his elaborate and erudite researches. The Editor of the Loseley MSS. now takes leave, in his turn, to propose a query, really "for the sake of information." Did Du Cange find, even in the jargon of the middle age, so barbarous a term as ** Marbrinus Pannus," or is it the coinage of the critic's brain? In the edition of Du Cange in the Editor's possession, the glossarist certainly

defines "Marmoreus Pannus" thus: Tunica de quodam panno marmoreo spisso cum rotis et griffonibus. Alibi Casula marmorei coloris. Marbré appellamus quod variis coloribus interstinguiBut, on the barbarous term Marbrinus (if it had any previous existence to the publication of the July number of the Gentleman's Magazine), the edition he quotes is silent. It may, perhaps, be of

tur "

some service to the critic's animadversion to point out that the Glossaire de la Langue Romane says, "Marbre sorte d'etoffe de differentes couleurs, de marmor, en bas Latin marbretus." Hence the Marbrinus, perhaps, of P.C.S.S. Hence one might suggest to the critic, by a slight corruption, the name of the celebrated Mambrino (q. d. Marbr'no), because he

might wear a mottled surcoat and a marble helmet, in order that his enemies might be astonied! The old classic writers are rather against P.C.S.S.; for Virgil and Lucretius use marmoreus in the sense of uniformity of colour. Certainly the Dictionary of the French Academy defines Etoffes Marbrées"-(not Marbrés, however), as the eritic quotes. The Editor of the Loseley MSS. allows that he ought to have written coats of a motley colour; and he truly adds, that, for the herd of " good-natured" hypercritics, Motley is your only wear."

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J. R. refers G. L. F., who inquires in p. 2, as to the author of "Vindiciae contra Tyrannos," to Bayle's Dissertation on the subject, appended to the last volume of his "Dictionnaire Historique," of every edition; to "Deckerus de scriptis Adespotis, with a letter from Bayle at the end," Amst. 1686, in 12mo; to "Placcii Theatrum Anonymorum et Pseudonymorum," Hamb. 1708, folio; and the "Supplementum Mylii, 1740;" and, finally, to Barbier's "Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes," 2d edition, 1822, 1827, 4 vols. 8vo. All these volumes are in the British Museum; but the Dissertation by Bayle sets the question at rest, and proves incontestably that Hubert Languet was the author. Placcius and Barbier only copy Bayle, who is instar omnium; and your Correspondent need not go further. H. Languet principally derives his arguments from the Bible, to which his opponents equally refer.

A Reader of the Gentleman's Magazine will esteem it a great favour if the Editor of that useful periodical would inform him where the Greek verses, written by the poet Thomson, referred to in the last

series of Notes on Boswell's Johnson, are to be found; and if the letter of Cave, from which a quotation is made, has been printed?At the same time, the Reader of Sylvanus Urban's Magazine would express a wish, that the able writer of those Notes would bring together the anecdotes of Thomson he alludes to. The story of Thomson's marriage must be an impudent fabrication. Thomson's nurse (had he a nurse?) told George Chalmers,-Chalmers told Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Taylor tells the story to the public. Who can for a moment believe it?