found as above, though not usually so.

* * * * *

PEDLAR'S SONG ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKSPERE, AND TRADITION CONNECTED WITH
SHAKSPERE'S "HAMLET."

The following verses, which would form a very appropriate song for
Autolycus, were arranged as a glee for three voices by Dr. Wilson about
the year 1667. They are published in Playford's _Musical Companion_ in
1673; in Warren's _Collection of Glees and Catches_; and in S. Webbe's
_Conveto Harmonico_. The words were, I believe, first ascribed to
Shakspere by Clark, in 1824, in his _Words of Glees, Madrigals, &c._;
but he has not given his authority for so doing. It has been stated that
they have since been discovered in a common-place book written about
Shakspere's time, with his name attached to them, and with this indirect
evidence in favour of their being written by him, that the other pieces
in the collection are attributed to their proper writers. The late Mr.
Douce, who was inclined to believe the song to have been written by
Shakspere, once saw a copy of it with a fourth verse which was shown to
him by the then organist of Chichester. The poem is not included in Mr.
Collier's edition of Shakspere, nor in the Aldine edition of Shakspere's
Poems, edited by the Rev. A. Dyce. Perhaps if you will be good enough to
insert the song and the present communication in the "NOTES AND
QUERIES," some of your readers may be enabled to fix the authorship and
to furnish the additional stanza to which I have referred.


PEDLAR'S SONG.