Excecution of Duke of Monmouth.—­Among the memorials of the “rash but unfortunate Duke of Monmouth,” which have recently attracted much attention, and for which the public are principally indebted to certain inquiries originated in the “NOTES AND QUERIES,” I have not observed any notice taken of an anecdote respecting him, which is current among our neighbours on the Continent; namely, that he gave six guineas to the executioner, the JOHN KETCH of that day, to perform his work well!—­

   “Le Duc de Monmout donna six guinees au Bourreau de Londres,
    pour lui bien couper la tete; mais le miserable ne merroit
    par ces guinees, puisqu’il la lui coupa tres mal.”

This anecdote is introduced, in the form of a note, into the folio Dictionary of Pierre Richelet, a most valuable work, and full of history, ancient and modern.  Can any of your correspondents produce the authority for this anecdote?  Richelet himself does not give any, but merely relates the story, apparently with a view of illustrating the term “guinea,” as applied to the gold coin of Charles the Second.  Vid, voc. “Guinee.”

J.I.

By Hook or by Crook.—­I send you a note, which I made some years ago.

This expression is much more ancient than the time of Charles I., to which it is generally referred.  It occurs in Skelton, Colin Clout, line 31. a fine:—­

   “Nor wyll suffer this boke
    By hooke ne by crooke
    Prynted for to be.”

In Spenser, f. 2. v. ii. 27.:—­

   “Thereafter all that mucky pelfe he tooke,
    The spoile of peoples evil gotten good,
    The which her sire had serap’t by hooke and crooke,
    And burning all to ashes pour’d it down the brooke.”

In Holland’s Suetonius, p. 169:—­

   “Likewise to get, to pill and poll by hooke and crooke
    so much, as that——­”

In a letter of Sir Richard Morysin to the Privy Council, in Lodges Illustrations, &c., i. 154:—­

   “Ferrante Gonzaga, d’Arras, and Don Diego, are in a leage,
    utterlie bent to myslyke, and to charge by hook or by
    crooke, anything don, or to be don, by the thre fyrst.”

L.S.

Cupid Crying.—­The beautiful epigram upon this subject, which appeared in No. 11 p. 172., was kindly quoted, “for its extreme elegance,” by the Athenaeum of the 26th January, which produced the following communication to that journal of Saturday last:—­

“Will the correspondent of the ‘NOTES AND QUERIES,’ whose pretty epigram appears copied into your Athenaeum of Saturday last, accept the following as a stop-gap pending the discovery of the Latin original?

   “En lacrymosus Amor!  Fidem quia perdidit arcum
      Vapulat!  Exultans Caelia tela tenet. 
    Ast illam potuitne Puer donare sagittis? 
      Subrisit:—­Matrem credidit esse suam.