of marginal notes to Pope Leo’s Bull of the preceding year.  In the remarkable wood-cut with which “[Greek:  OYTIS, NEMO]” commences, the object of which is not immediately apparent, it would seem that “VL.” implied a play upon the initial letters of Ulysses and Ulricus.  This syllable is put over the head of a person whose neck looks as if it were already the worse from unfortunate proximity to the terrible rock wielded by Polyphemus.  I should be glad that “S.W.S.” could see some manuscript verses in German, whcih are at the end of my copy of De Hutten’s Conquestio ad Germanos.  They appear to have been written by the author in 1520; and at the conclusion, he has added, “Vale ingrata patria.”

R.G.

* * * * *

QUESTIONS CONCERNING CHAUCER.

Lollius.—­Who was the Lollius spoken of by Chaucer in the following passages?

  “As write mine authour Lolius.”
  Troilus and Cresseide, b. i.

  “The Whichecote as telleth Lollius.” 
  Ib. b. v.

  “And eke he Lollius.”—­House of Fame, b. iii.

Trophee.—­Who or what was “Trophee?” “Saith Trophee” occurs in the Monkes Tale.  I believe some MSS. read “for Trophee;” but “saith Trophee” would appear to be the correct rendering; for Lydgate, in the Prologue to his Translation of Boccaccio’s Fall of Princes, when enumerating the writings of his “maister Chaucer,” tells us, that

  “In youth he made a translacion
  Of a boke which is called Trophe
  In Lumbarde tonge, as men may rede and se,
  And in our vulgar, long or that he deyde,
  Gave it the name of Troylous and Cressyde.”

Corinna.—­Chaucer says somewhere, “I follow Statius first, and then Corinna.”  Was Corinna in mistake put for Colonna?  The

  “Guido eke the Colempnis,”

whom Chaucer numbers with “great Omer” and others as bearing up the fame of Troy (House of Fame, b. iii.).

Friday Weather.—­The following meteorological proverb is frequently repeated in Devonshire, to denote the variability of the weather on Friday: 

  “Fridays in the week
  are never aleek.”

“Aleek” for “alike,” a common Devonianism. {304} Thus Peter Pindar describes a turbulent crowd of people as being

  “Leek bullocks sting’d by apple-drones.”

Is this bit of weather-wisdom current in other parts of the kingdom?  I am induced to ask the question, because Chaucer seems to have embodied the proverb in some well-known lines, viz.:—­

“Right as the Friday, sothly for to tell, Now shineth it, and now it raineth fast, Right so can gery Venus overcast The hertes of hire folk, right as hire day Is gerfull, right so changeth she aray. Selde is the Friday all the weke ylike.”

  The Knighte’s Tale, line 1536.