“And woman who had wept her loveliest dower
  There hid her broken heart.
    Paris. “I do remember it.  Twas such a face
  As Guido would have loved to dwell upon;
  But oh! the touches of his pencil never
  Could paint her perfect beauty.  In her home
  (Which once she did desert) I saw her last;
  Propp’d up by pillows, swelling round her like
  Soft heaps of snow, yielding, and fit to bear
  Her faded figure.  I observed her well: 
  Her brow was fair, but very pale, and look’d
  Like stainless marble; a touch methought would soil
  Its whiteness.  O’er her temple one blue vein
  Ran like a tendril; one through her shadowy hand
  Branch’d like the fibre of a leaf—­away. 
  Her mouth was tremulous, and her cheek wore then
  A flush of beautiful vermilion,
  But more like art than nature; and her eye
  Spoke as became the youthful Magdalen,
  Dying and broken-hearted.”

G.J.  DE WILDE.

Dodd’s Church History (Vol. ii., p. 347).—­G.R., who is good enough to speak of my edition of this work in a very flattering manner, presumes, and not unnaturally, from the lengthened period which has elapsed since the appearance of the last, or fifth volume, that its continuation “has for some reason or other been abandoned.”  I am glad, however, to inform him that such is not the case.  Health, and other uncontrollable circumstances, have unfortunately interfered to impede the progress of the work; but that it is not abandoned, I hope, ere long, to give to him and to the public a practical evidence.

M.A.  TIERNEY.

Arundel, Nov. 1850.

Blackwall Docks (Vol. i., pp. 141. 220.).—­These, in Pepys’ time, probably included more than the dry docks, known as Wigram’s and Green’s; e.g., in Sir Thomas Brame’s Letters, dated 29th Sept. 1666, we read: 

    “Blackwall hath the largest wet dock in England, and belongs chiefly to
    the East India Company.”—­Sir Thos.  Brame’s Letters, edit.  Wilkin, t.
    i. p. 135.

W. DN.

Wives of Ecclesiastics (Vol. i., p. 149.).—­In Archdeacon Hale’s Curious Precedents in Criminal Causes, p. 23., under 1490, and in the parish of S. Nicholas, Coldharbour, London, we read: 

    “Nicholai Colde.—­Johannes Warwick quondam clericus parochie ibidem
    adulteravit cum Rosa Williamson et ob amorem illius mutilavit et quasi
    interfecit uxorem propriam.”

We may remark that the delinquent is not called Dominus, but “clericus parochie.”

W. DN.

Stephens’ Sermons (Vol. i., p. 334.).—­The sermons referred to by BALLIOLIENSIS, with a suggestion that they may be those of the Rev. W. Stephens, were preached by Rev. Samuel Johnson, vicar of Great, and rector of Little Torrington.  Stephens was subsequently vicar of St. Andrew’s, Plymouth, a living then in the gift of the corporation.