Mr. Cunningham into his life of Inigo Jones; but Jones's annual allowance is still more inaccurately stated in Mr. Collier's excellent Annals of the Stage. "I may here add," he says, "on the authority of Harl. MS. No. 1857, the annual allowance for the office of Surveyor of the Works, the situation at this time held by Inigo Jones. It is given in the following form:

Mr. Collier meant to refer, I presume, to Harl. MS. 4257 (not 1857) where Inigo's income as surveyor stands as follows:

The Harl. MS. 1848 (fol. 21 b.) gives the riding Expences of the Surveyor in 1593 at four shillings a day, and the Boathire at the same rate.

Srveyor

THE WORKES.

Fee at 20. pr diem-One Clerk 6d. per diem-Expences when he rideth at 4. per diem. Boate hire at 4. pr diem

In 1610, the salary of Simon Basyl was as follows (Harl. MS., 1857, fol. 18):

I purpose printing in the second volume of these Papers (should the Society continue to think my communications of sufficient interest to warrant their insertion) several curious extracts from an account now before me of the " Charges incurred in building a Banquetting House at Whitehall and erecting a new Pier in the Isle of Portland for the conveyance of stone from thence to Whitehall." Inigo Jones's Banqueting House at Whitehall has other interesting features (invisible though they be) than the breadth and harmonious. proportions of its architecture: as the court playhouse upon great occasions, it is inseparably allied with the history of our early theatres, with Lowen and with Taylor, with the masques of Jonson and the plays of Shakespeare, Fletcher, Massinger, and Shirley.

P. CUNNINGHAM.

ART. XXIV.-On the word "Ducdame," in As You Like it.

The notes of the commentators on this word, which occurs in a song in "As You Like It," are by no means satisfactory. Mr. Collier judiciously omits the accent Ducdùme, for, it being necessarily a trisyllable, owing to the construction of the verse, if any accent were required, we ought to print Ducdamé. The mere fact of the word being a trisyllable shows at once the inconsistency of attempting to establish a connexion with the old country song, commencing,—

"Dame, what makes your ducks to die?"

on which Whiter and Farmer have so elaborately written, and which Mr. Knight pronounces much more rational than Hanmer's conjecture of duc ad me, which is forced and unnecessary, I admit, but not quite so absurd as to suppose Jaques was using some country call of a woman to her ducks. Mr. Collier seems correct when he says that Jaques's declaration of its being "a Greek invocation to call fools into a circle" is merely a jeer upon the ignorance of Amiens. In other words, Amiens understood as little about Ducdame as Mr. Knight and the commentators, and the answer of Jaques is playful, not a serious exposition of the word.

I have recently met with a passage in an uncollated MS. of the "Vision of Piers Ploughman," in the Bodleian Library, which goes far to prove that Ducdamé is a burden of an old song, an explanation which exactly agrees with its position in the song of Jaques. The passage is as follows::

"Thanne sete ther some,

And sunge at the ale,

And helpen to erye that half akre

With Dusadam-me-me."

MS. Rawl. Poet. 137, f. 6.

To show that this is evidently intended for the burden of a song, we need only compare it with the corresponding passage in the printed edition :

"And thanne seten somme,

And songen atte nale,

And holpen ere this half acre

With How, trolly lolly."

Piers Ploughman, ed. Wright, p. 124.

Making allowances for the two centuries which elapsed between the appearance of "Piers Ploughman" and "As You Like It," is there too great a difference between Dusadam-meme and Duc-da-me to warrant my belief that the latter is a legitimate descendant of the more ancient refrain? At all events, it must be borne in mind that the commentators have not produced any old word equally near it in their dissertations on its meaning.

This word may also possibly be intended by Dmee! dmee! dmee! in Armin's Nest of Ninnies, (Shakespeare Society's reprint,) p. 32. Mr. Collier, however, thinks it "most likely an abbreviation of Dear me."

J. O. HALLIWELL.

ART. XXV.-Signature of John Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Papers.

William

The Athenæum of March 2nd contained a review of "the Works of William Shakespeare, with his Life." As I have long felt a very particular interest in the biography of the poet, and would gladly contribute my mite on any occasion to the general treasury of facts that tend to throw any degree of light on the history of himself or of those connected with him, I beg to make a suggestion that occurred to me some months ago, in reference to a paragraph in the review.

The reviewer says (p. 191,) "It has been a point much controverted of late years, whether the poet's father could or could not write his own name. Malone assures us that John Shakespeare could not write his own name, that he was a marksman, and that his mark nearly resembles the letter A., and was probably chosen in honour of the lady he had married.""

Malone was evidently not aware that a considerable number of those persons who make use of marks, from an inability to write their names, adopt a signum, which "nearly resembles the letter A.;" the same being formed thus: (A). The adoption of this mark as a mode of signature was doubtless first suggested by the caret; or rather, such mark was identical therewith, and originally used as the means of expressing, independently of its vicarious signification, that the power of writing the name was wanting.

During many years, in which I attended as an assistant in the office of my late father, (the Registry of the Archdeaconry of Nottingham) I had numberless opportunities of witnessing the various modes of signature to official documents; and my experience records the fact that, although the much larger portion of markspeople signed with the cross (X) (+), yet many, very many, used the caret. And by this name was the mark in question repeatedly noticed by clerks, apparitors,