2 JANUARY 1904, Page 22

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR, — Long before this can

reach you, a dozen or more corre- spondents will probably have called your attention to the fact, in connection with the letters of " F. B. E." and Mr. Pears (Spectator, November 21st and December 5th, 1903), that " bag and baggage " is a phrase of Shakespeare's. In As You Like It (Act III., Scene 2) Touchstone says :—" Come, shep- herd, let us make an honourable retreat ; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage." The Eliza- bethan settlers of America brought the word " baggage " with them as well as the thing, and the word has never been superseded here by the equivalent " luggage."—I am, Sir, &c.,

United States Senate, Washington. H. C. LODGE.