(Vol. viii., p. 411.) My attention was directed to the consideration of this expression some years ago when reading in John Dymmoks' _Treatise of Ireland_, written about the year 1600, and published among the _Tracts relating to Ireland, printed for the Irish Archæological Society_, vol. ii., the following paragraph: "Before the vant-guard marched the _forelorn hope_, consisting of forty shott and twenty shorte weapons, with order that they should not discharge untill they presented theire pieces to the rebells' breasts in their trenches, and that sooddenly the short weapons should enter the trenches pell mell: vpon eyther syde of the vant-guarde (which was observed in the batle and reare-guarde) marched wings of shott enterlyned with pikes, to which were sent secondes with as much care and diligence as occasion required. The baggage, and a parte of the horse, marched before the battell; the rest of the horse troopes fell in before the _rearewarde_ except thirty, which, in the head of the _rearelorne hope_, conducted by Sir Hen. Danvers, made the retreit of the whole army."--P.32. The terms _rearelorne hope_ and _forlorne hope_ occur constantly in the same work, and bear the same signification as in the foregoing. Remarking upon this circumstance to my friend the late Dr. Graves, he wrote the following notice of the word in the _Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science_, of which I was then the editor, in Feb. 1849: "Military and civil writers of the present day seem quite ignorant of the true meaning of the words {570} _forlorn hope_. The adjective has nothing to do with despair, nor the substantive with the 'charmer which lingers still behind;' there was no such poetical depth in the words as originally used. Every corps marching in any enemy's country had a small body of men at the head (_haupt_ or _hope_) of the advanced guard; and which was termed the _forlorne hope_ (_lorn_ being here but a termination similar to _ward_ in _forward_), while another small body at the head of the rere guard was called the _rear-lorn hope_ (xx.). A reference to Johnson's _Dictionary_ proves that civilians were misled as early as the time of Dryden by the mere sound of a technical military phrase; and, in process of time, even military men forgot the true meaning of the words. It grieves me to sap the foundations of an error to which we are indebted for Byron's beautiful line: 'The full of hope, misnamed _forlorn_.'" W. R. WILDE. Dublin. * * * * * TIECK'S "COMOEDIA DIVINA." (Vol. viii., p. 126.) The title-page of this work is: _Comoedia Divina, mit drei Vorreden von Peter Hammer, Jean Paul, und dem Herausgeber_, 1808. The absence of publisher's name and place of publication leaves little doubt that the name W. G. H. Gotthardt, and the date "Basel, Mai 1, 1808," are both fictitious.