If any of your readers can inform me of another copy of the above ballad,
especially unmodernised (the versification must have suffered in the
frequent reprints) and in black-letter of an early date, they will do me a
favour. At present I am unable to decide whether it was founded upon
Greene's novel, Shakspeare's play, or upon some independent, possibly
foreign, narrative. I am by no means satisfied that Greene's novel was not
a translation, and we know that he was skilful in Italian, Spanish, and
French.

J. PAYNE COLLIER.

I cannot find the particular Number of NOTES AND QUERIES, but unless I am
greatly mistaken, in one of them, a correspondent gave praise (I am the
last to say it was not deserved) to DR. MAGINN for suggesting that _miching
mallecho_, in _Hamlet_, Act III. Sc. 2., was from the Spanish _mucho
malhecho_. I never heard of DR. MAGINN's opinion until I saw it in your
pages; but if you happen to be able to refer to the Shakspeare I
superintended through the press in 1843, vol. vii. p 271., note 9., you
will see that I propose the Spanish word _malhecho_ as the origin of
"mallecho." I did not think this point worth notice at the time, and I
doubt whether it is worth notice now. If you leave out this postscript, as
you are at perfect liberty to do, I shall conclude that you are of my
opinion.

J.P.C.

[The passage to which our valued correspondent refers is in our Second
Volume, p. 358., where J.M.B. points out that the suggestion of a
writer in the _Quarterly Review_ for March 1850, that Shakspeare's