historian; _e.g._, was it the custom in those unhappy days to disinter,
after a time, the slightly-buried corpses, and deposit the bones in the
consecrated vault?--or was this the accidental work of some antiquarian
sexton of the "Old Mortality" species?--or was the pious attention
suggested by the ploughman's later discoveries--

"Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro," &c.?

Any report from the places where there happen to be bone-houses,
together with the local tradition assigning their origin, would I think,
throw light on an interesting and rather obscure subject.

Ecclesfield, Dec. 31. 1849.

ALFRED GATTY

* * * * *

CONTRADICTIONS IN DON QUIXOTE; AND QUERY AS TO THE BUSCAPIÉ.

In answer to the question of "MELANION" (in No. 5 p. 73.), it may be
sufficient to refer him to the Spanish editions with notes, viz. that of
Pellicer in 1800; the 4th edition of the Spanish Academy in 1819; and
that of D. Diego Clemencin in 1833, where he will find the discrepancies
he mentions pointed out. In the first edition of 1605 there was another
instance in the same chapter, which Cervantes corrected in the edition
of 1608, but overlooked the other two. It was one of those lapses, _quas
incuria fudit_, which great writers as well as small are subject to.
Clemencin laughs at De los Rios for thinking it a chracteristic of great
geniuses so to mistake; and at the enthusiasm of some one else, who said