“There is the bird engendered by the sea out of timber long lying in the sea.  Some call them clakes, and soland geese, and some puffins; others bernacles, because they resemble them.  We call them girrinn.”

     Martin, in his Western Isles of Scotland, says:—­

“There are also the cleek geese.  The shells in which this fowl is said to be produced, are found in several isles sticking to trees by the bill; of this kind I have seen many,—­the fowl was covered by a shell, and the head stuck to the tree by the bill,—­but never saw any of them with life in them upon the tree; but the natives told me that they had observed them to move with the heat of the sun.”—­See also Gratianus, Lucius, Ware’s Antiquities, &c.

Eating sea-birds on fast days is a very ancient custom.  Socrates mentions it in the 5th century:  “Some along with fish eat also birds, saying, that according to Moses, birds like fish were created out of the waters.”  Mention is made in Martin’s Western Isles, of a similar reason for eating seals in Lent. Cormorants, “as feeding only on fish,” were allowable food on fast days, as also were otters.

CEREDWYN.

Vondel’s Lucifer.—­I cannot inform your correspondent F. (No. 9 p. 142.), whether Vondel’s Lucifer has ever been translated into English, but he will find reasons for its not being worth translating, in the Foreign Quarterly Review for April, 1829, where the following passage occurs:—­

“Compare with him Milton, for his Lucifer gives the fairest means of comparison.  How weak are his highest flights compared with those of the bard of Paradise! and how much does Vondel sink beneath him in his failures!  Now and then the same thought may be found in both, but the points of resemblance are not in passages which do Milton’s reputation the highest honour.”

The scene of this strange drama is laid in Heaven, and the dramatis personae are as follows:—­

  Beelzebub }
  Belial } Disobedient Officers. 
  Apollion }
  Gabriel (Interpreter of God’s secrets). 
  Troop of Angels. 
  Lucifer. 
  Luciferists (Rebellious Spirits). 
  Michael (Commander-in-chief). 
  Rafael (Guardian Angel). 
  Uriel (Michael’s Esquire). 
Act I. Scene 1.  Beelzebub, Belial, Apollion, &c.

I give this from the original Dutch now before me.  HERMES.

Dutch Version of Dr. Faustus.—­Can any of your correspondents give me information as to the author of a Dutch History of Dr. Faustus, without either author’s name or date, and illustrated by very rude engravings?  There is no mention of where it was printed, but at the bottom of the title-page is the following notice:—­

     “Compared with the high Dutch copy, and corrected in many places,
     and ornamented with beautiful copper plates."[3]