Can any of your correspondents throw any light upon the authorship of a work frequently attributed to Myles Coverdale, and thus entitled, “A Brieff discours off the Troubles begonne at Frankford in Germany, Anno Domini, 1554.  Abowte the Booke off common prayer and Ceremonies, and continued by the Englishe Men theyre, to the ende off Q. Maries Raigne, in the which discours, the gentle reader shall see the verry originall and beginninge off all the contention that hathe byn, and what was the cause off the same?” A text from “Marc 4.” with the date MDLXXV.  Some copies are said to have the initials “M.C.” on the title-page, and the name in full, “Myles Coverdale,” at the end of the preface; but no notice is taken of this impression in the excellent introductory remarks prefixed by Mr. Petheram to the reprint of 1846.  If the valuable work was really written by Myles Coverdale (and it is much in his style), it must have been interspersed with remarks by another party, for in the preface, signed, as it is said by Coverdale, allusion is made to things occuring in 1573, four years after his death.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

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QUERIES.

SPECULUM EXEMPLORUM:—­EPISTOLA DE MISERIA CURATORUM.

Who was the compiler of the Speculum Exemplorum, printed for the first time at Deventer, in 1481?  A copy of the fourth edition, Argent, 1490, does not afford any information about this matter; and I think that Panzer (v. 195.) will be consulted in vain.  Agreeing in opinion with your correspondent “GASTROS” (No. 21. p. 338.) that a querist should invariably give an idea of the extent of his acquaintance with the subject proposed, I think it right to say, that I have examined the list of authors of Exempla, which is to be found in the appendix to Possevin’s Apparatus Sacer, tom. i. sig. [Greek:  b] 2., and that I have read Ribadeneira’s notice of the improvements made in this Speculum by the Jesuit Joannes Major.

Who was the writer of the Epistola de Miseria Curatorum? My copy consists of eight leaves, and a large bird’s-cage on the verse of the last leaf is evidently the printer’s device.  Seemiller makes mention of an Augsburg edition of this curious tract. (Biblioth.  Acad.  Ingolstad.  Incunab. typog. Fascic. ii. p. 142.  Ingolst. 1788.)

R.G.

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THE SECOND DUKE OF ORMONDE.

The review of Mr. Wright’s England under the House of Hanover, illustrated by the Caricatures and Satires of the Day, given in the Athenaeum (No. 1090.), cites a popular ballad on the flight and attainder of the second Duke of Ormonde, as taken down from the mouth of an Isle of Wight fishmonger.  This review elicited from a correspondent (Athenaeum, No. 1092.) another version of the same ballad as prevalent in Northumberland.  I made a note of these at the time; and was lately much interested at receiving from an esteemed correspondent (the Rev. P. Moore, Rochenon, co.  Kilkenny), a fragment of another version of the same ballad, which he (being at the time ignorant of the existence of any other version of the song) had taken down from the lips of a very old man of the neighbourhood, viz.:—­