It is therefore clear that Mr. Jebb is mistaken in thinking that it was "a blunder of _Malone's_." It seems, as far as we can see, to have been, not a blunder, but an audacious fabrication; and how it came into the Irish edition, seems to me incomprehensible. The printer of the Dublin edition, Exshaw, was a respectable man, an alderman and a Protestant, and _he_ could have no design to make William Shakspeare pass for a papist; nor indeed does the author of the fraud, whoever he was, attempt _that_; for the three paragraphs profess to be the confession of _John_. So that, on the whole, the matter is to me quite inexplicable; it is certain that it must have been a premeditated forgery and fraud, but by whom or for what possible purpose, I cannot conceive. C. * * * * * HINTS TO INTENDING EDITORS. _Beaumont and Fletcher; Gray; Seward; Milton._--By way of carrying out the suggestion which you thought fit to print at page 316, as to the advantages likely to arise from intimations in your pages of the existence of the MS. annotations, and other materials suitable to the purposes of intending editors of standard works, I beg to mention the following books in my possession, which are much at the service of any editor who may apply to you for my address, viz.:-- 1. A copy of Tonson's 10 vol. edit. of Beaumont and Fletcher (8vo. 1750), interleaved and copiously annotated, to the extent of about half the plays, by Dr. Hoadly. 2. Mr. Haslewood's collection of materials for an edit. of Gray, consisting of several works and parts of works, MS. notes, newspaper cuttings, &c., bound in 6 vols. 3. A collection of works of Miss Anne Seward, Mr. Park's copy, with his MS. notes, newspaper cuttings, &c. As a first instalment of my promised notes on Milton's _Minor Poems_, I have transcribed the following from my two copies, premising that "G." stands for the name of Mr. Gilchrist, and "D." for that of Mr. Dunster, whose name is misprinted in your 316th page, as "Duns_ton_." _Notes on Lycidas._ On l. 2. (G.):-- "O'er head sat a raven, on a _sere_ bough." _Jonson's Sad Shepherd_, Act. I. Sc. 6. On l. 26. (D.):-- "Whose so early lay Prevents _the eyelids of the blushing day_." _Crashaw's Music's Duel._ On l. 27. (D.):-- "Each sheapherd's daughter, with her cleanly peale, was come _afield_ to milke the morning's meale." _Brown's Britannia's Pastorals_, B. iv. Sc. 4. p. 75. ed. 1616. On l. 29. (G.):-- "And in the _deep fog batten_ all the day." _Drayton_, vol. ii. p. 512. ed. 1753. On l. 40. (G.):-- "The _gadding_ winde." _Phineas Fletcher's_ 1st _Piscatorie Eclogue_, st. 21. On l. 40. (D.):-- "This black den, which rocks emboss, _Overgrown_ with eldest moss." _Wither's Shepherd's Hunting_, Eclogue 4. On l. 68. (D.) the names of Amaryllis and Neæra are combined together with other classical names of beautiful nymphs by Ariosto (_Orl. Fur._ xi. st. 12.)