edition of one of our most pleasing authors is rendered the more attractive by the account of his life prefixed, which contains many new and interesting anecdotes. IT HAPPENS TO BE KNOWN TO

US, THOUGH BY WHAT CHANNEL WE ARE NOT AT LIBERTY TO SAY, that the materials have been collected from the most authentic sources, in a great measure from the relations of the poet himself, and digested and arranged under the eye of a Writer who to many other qualifications added an intimate knowledge of the person described.* Who the medical friend was, who communicated a few of the anecdotes, we are not informed; BUT OF THE REST WE CAN SPEAK WITH CONFIDENCE; and of that part also we cannot but say that it bears strong marks of authenticity."

Bp. Percy to Messrs. Cadell and Davies. "GENTLEMEN,

Near Northampton, Aug. 30, 1797. "In your proposed terms of agreement I have little objection, only before I engage for the Epilogue having been never printed, I have applied to a friend much more conversant with the stage than I am, to make a very minute search into that subject. The longest and most valuable of the two, which I have in the Doctor's own handwriting, I have every reason to believe never was, and this will be sufficient to secure to the proprietors a renewed property in his Works. The other he gave me in a packet of his letters and papers, but being in the handwriting of the actor who was to recite it, may have got into some old magazine, though I never heard it was in any.

"Mr. Boyd had just finished his Life of Goldsmith as I was leaving Ireland, and I have been too much engaged with more important business since I came over to give it a regular revisal ; but from a cursory inspection I see that, although it is elegantly written, yet as I knew personally and intimately Dr. Goldsmith, which Mr. Boyd did not, I can exceedingly improve it, which I am willing to do gratis, and with as much speed as is consistent with my health and other more important engagements (having, though personally absent, the superintendence of a diocese, which, being at a distance, engages me in the more business, as I have letters and papers to forward without the assistance of a secretary), not to mention other avocations. In the meantime the delay is for the advantage of the booksellers, as it will afford them more time to dispose of the handsome edition which, you say, the proprietors have still on their hands. However, I will prepare the Life with all convenient dispatch, while you are printing off the other three , vols. For I think the arrangement should be thus, not separating the Plays and Poems, much less the Citizen of the World :'

"1 vol.The Life,' with Dr. Goldsmith's Review of Polite Literature in Europe' (to which I can add some notes given me by

*The Bishop appears to have been dissatisfied with some "Interpolations" in the Life, as noticed in a letter from Malone to Percy (see this vol. p. 240); but who the Interpolator was does not appear.

the author, and never printed), and some other things to complete that volume.

"2. The Poems and Plays.

"3. The Citizen of the World;' this should be in 1 volume. "4. The Essays,' and 'Vicar of Wakefield.'

"If you can send me all the copies from which you intend to print, I will give them a previous revision, and can perhaps supply some illustrations. If you accept the proposal, I will in my next direct you how to send them to "Your obedient servant."

"GENTLEMEN,

Near Northampton, April 6th, 1798. "I should have sent you the copy of Dr. Goldsmith's Life, &c. last week as I proposed, but my journey to Ireland being delayed till next week, I have employed the intermediate time in giving it a thorough revisal. I shall send it at the beginning of next week, and with it some of his fugitive pieces, which till now have not been known to be his; as also a new and beautiful stanza of his 'Hermit,' which will render all former editions of that poem incomplete and defective.

"I shall also return you all the books you sent me except Boswell's Life of Johnson, in 3 vols. 8vo., which a friend wishes to retain, if you will inform me by return of post of the price.

"I shall insert in your copy of The Inquiry into the present State of Polite Literature in Europe,' Dr. Goldsmith's MS. Notes, but his references being made to the first edition, and the pages, and probably many passages, being altered in this which you sent me, being the second edition, I cannot always find the places, &c.; unless therefore you should wish I should carry your book to Ireland, to collate it with my first edition, I shall now send yours, with Dr. Goldsmith's paper of notes stuck thereon, your printer perhaps will apply to the proper places.

"I thought to have taken for my companion in the postchaise the two volumes of Dr. Goldsmith's Poems, which might furnish remarks for your next edition: if you had rather they should be returned with the rest, you shall have them now.

"I am, Gentlemen, your humble Servant,

"THO. DROMORE."

P. 622. The Rev. Wm. Lisle Bowles died at Salisbury on the 7th April 1850, in his 88th year. His literary career was distinguished, first, by his sweet poetry, particularly his sonnets; next by his controversial writings respecting Alexander Pope, and on various matters of ecclesiastical policy; and lastly by his antiquarian works, particularly his Histories of Lacock Abbey and of his own parish of Bremhill. See a memoir of this very amiable but eccentric man in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1850, p. 672.

P. 679, note. See memoir and portrait of the Rev. Theophilus Buckeridge in Lit. Illust. VI. 311; and in Erdeswick's Survey of Staffordshire, edited by Dr. Harwood, 2d edit. 1844, p. lxvi.

P. 680, 1. 22. Nathan Drake, M.D. died June 7, 1836, aged 70. See memoir of him in Gent. Mag. 1836, ii. 215.

P. 699, l. 10, r.

P. 752, note, г.

P. 834, note .

"Beaufort."

"Mr. J. Talbot Dillon."

Lord Plunket died at his seat, Old Connaught, Jan. 5, 1854, in his 90th year. See memoir of him in Gent. Mag. 1854, i. 191.

P. 832. Alexander Marsden, Esq. died Sept. 22, 1835.

P. 844, note. Dr. W. Marsden died Oct. 6, 1836. See memoir in Gent. Mag. Feb. 1837, p. 212.

P. 846, note, r. " Mr. William Beauford."

VOLUME VIII.

P. 2, 1. 2, r." Married to Stephen first Earl of Mountcashel, and died June 3, 1792."

P. 43, note. Joseph Mallord William Turner, esq. R.A. the very eminent landscape-painter, died Dec. 19, 1851, aged 76; leaving his country indebted to him for one of the most generous bequests ever given to the public, by which his memory will be preserved to distant generations. See memoir, Gent. Mag. Feb. 1852, p. 198.

P. 73, 1. 3, from bottom, for "1783," r. " 1788."

P. 74, notes, 1. 3, from bott. Mrs. Mary Morgan, daughter of John Nichols, died Aug. 1, 1850. (See Gent. Mag. Sept. p. 337.) P. 85, note, l. 3 from bottom, r." Rev. Edward Blakeway." P. 95, note. The Rev. Edward Popham was first of St. Mary hall, Oxford, B.A. 1759; afterwards Fellow of Oriel college, M.A. 1762, B. and D.D. 1774. He was presented by his father to the rectory of Chilton Foliot, in Wiltshire, in 1779, and died there on the 16th Sept. 1815, aged 77. See the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxxv. ii. 877, and the Topographer and Genealogist, 1858, vol. iii. pp. 576, 588.

P. 96, note, 1. 3, for "present Bishop of London," r. “Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, who died in 1857."

P. 118. Charles O'Conor, esq. of Balynagare, died July 1, 1791, in his 82d year. See Gent. Mag. for Aug. 1791,

p. 776. P. 145, last note, Mr. Baynes was not the author of the "Archæological Epistle." It was written by the Rev. William Mason. See this volume, pp. 569, 571, 572.

P. 148. The following is extracted from the "Church History of Brittany from the Romans to the Conquest. By R. F. S. Cressy, of the holy order of Benedict." Fol. 1668. Book I. chap. iv. p. 7. "Next the Druids the Bards were in high esteem, who were the prophets, poets, and historians to the Brittaines; for, saith Ammianus Marcellinus (vol. 15), their office was to compose in heroic verses the famous exploits of their ancestors, which they sang to the people to the delightful musick of their harpes. And this confirms the saying of Festus, that the word Bardus in the Gallic or Brittish tongue signifies a

singer; as to this day the Welsh call such an one a Bard. Now the word bard a modern philologer (Abr. Vandermyl, in Gloss.) derives from the ancient Teutonic term bardo or wardo, signifying to see or observe: so that they may seem to be called in the same notion that the prophets among the Jews were called seers. Another late writer (not named) conceives the term bard to come from the German waerde, signifying still with us a word and a song, as the Greek term 'Enis doeth; so that a bard is 'ETOкOLOS, a song-maker. This was the chief employment of the bards; though, besides this, their task was likewise to conserve in memory the genealogies and descents of families."

P. 148. In the Gent. Mag. for March, 1848, p. 292, it is stated that some letters of Edward II. have been discovered. In one of these he sends his "rhymer" to learn to play the "crowther;" which seems to confirm Bishop Percy's opinion that the Bard and the Minstrel were the same person.

P. 173, note, l. 1, r. “ to and from Mr. Wilson."

P. 186. The following letter from Dr. Farmer to Mr. Malone, relating to the authorship of the plays of " King Henry VI." is copied from the Gentleman's Magazine for Nov. 1841, p. 494. Eman: Aug. 9, 1787.

MY DEAR SIR,

I hoped to have seen you in my way thro' town, but I spent only one day there, and that at the other end of it.

You should have heard from me a post or two sooner, but our Registrar was out of the University, and I could not earlier get into the office. I find that Henry Earl of Southampton was admitted to the degree of B.A. in 1589, and proceeded no further; and luckily examining the Book of Matriculations, I at last fell upon "Hen. Comes Southampton, impubes, 12 an°." of St. John's Coll. Dec. 11, 1585. Here we have his age as well as College. Essex was of Trin. June 1, 1579.

I know not what to say as to the picture you mention. To be sure I could not cry out with Falstaff that "I am ashamed of my Company;" but as there is a print * from it already, would not the property be invaded? Indeed, neither the one nor the other is a favourite. Romney supposed, as the picture was for a College, that it would be hung in a high room; and the engraver has not allowed for the exaggeration.

(Some casual remarks on other matters are here omitted.) By the way, this reminds me of a letter in the hands of Mr. Boswell, which will effectually demolish Mr. Colman's idea, that in the Preface to my Pamphlet I meant to compliment Mr. Steevens. It appears from the date of that letter that I had no acquaintance with him till long after that publication, and I wish Mr. Colman was informed that I alluded to Dr. Johnson, whose words I am sure I took down to a syllable: "I have not read a book which better answers the purpose for which it was written, and the ques

* This alludes to the portrait of Dr. Farmer painted by G. Romney, R.A, and engraved by J. Jones. It is preserved in Nichols's History of Leicestershire, frontispiece to vol. IV. Part I.

tion is for ever decided." Mr. Reed just shewed me this squib of Colman's. He cannot himself think that any thing else deserves notice. Whatever you may have fancy'd, I solemnly declare to you, that I always meant to send you my Notes on the Henrys, if I could find them, and I flattered myself they might be among some papers at Canterbury. I cannot yet find them, and you want no assistance. As I remember, you have some of my arguments, but not all. I have supposed the plays originally Marlow's, and altered after his death by Shakespeare; this I argued from Style and Manner, with many quotations, from passages contradictory to others in Shakespeare's genuine Plays, and others clashing in the Henry's themselves, which shew different hands, &c. &c. Besides, Marlow was so much hung up as an example of divine vengeance for Atheism, that nothing would go down under his name. That poor wretch Capell, besides his conundrum of Shakespeare's underwriting himself on purpose, quotes two lines to prove the whole Shakespeare's, "What! will th' aspiring blood of Lancaster sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted." It is curious that Marlow has the same phraseology in his Edward II. "Scorning that the lowly earth should drink his blood, mounts up to th'air." So much for Master Capell. After all, if any thing turns up you shall have it. In the last edition, many things taken from conversation, on a pencil'd margin, by Reed or Steevens, when they were with me, are egregiously blundered, and sometimes sheer nonsense. We shall be happy to see you at the Fair.

Calamo rapidiss.

To Edmund Malone, Esq.

Yours affectionately, R. FARMER.

P. 199, note, 1. 4, read "Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, who died Dec. 17, 1846," and of whom a memoir will be found in Gent. Mag. Feb. 1847, i. 197.

P. 205, 1. 6 from bottom. Mr. Selby was a Bencher at Gray's Inn. See Lit. Illust. VII. 139, and his account of Ritson's death, 142. P. 213, 1. 9 from bottom. "In one of the numerous letters I have copied relative to the Rowleian controversy is a passage which states that the original MSS., or at least a specimen of them, were lost by a gentleman who is now a Judge in India. This letter explains who that person was, and the true facts of the transaction.-E. G. BALLARD."

P. 237, note, 1. ult. The Rt. Hon. Thomas Orde afterwards took the name of Paulet, was made Lord Bolton, of Bolton Castle, co. York, Oct. 30, 1807, and died July 30, 1817.

P. 241, 1. 5. "Who was this Rev. Wm. Storrock, and what connexion had he with Sir John Eliot? It would appear, it was in consequence of this connexion that Bishop Percy presented him to the living in question.-E. G. BALLARD."

P. 265. The Rev. John Pridden, M.A., F.S.A. was born January 3, 1758, and was educated at St. Paul's School, London, and at Queen's College, Oxford. He was elected Minor Canon