About forty years after the death of Guybon Goddard, another attempt was made to produce or compile a history of this town, by a nameless person, but evidently a learned, ingenious, and industrious man. Unfortunately his attention was chiefly engaged about the churches, and especially the monuments and monumental inscriptions which they contained. These he took no small pains with, and made fair drawings of most of them. This work he carefully arranged, and fairly wrote out. It forms a moderate folio volume, and is now in the possession, or at least in the hands, of Mr. _Thomas King_ of this town, for we are informed that Dr. _Adams_ is the real owner of it. There are at the end of it some curious documents relating to divers ancient customs and occurrences, of which the compiler of the present history has in some measure availed himself. The volume was finished in 1724, and the author, it seems, died soon after. Within a few years after his death, the work fell into the hands of Mr. B. _Mackerell_, who, after making a few paltry additions to it, actually published the greatest part of it verbatim under his own name, and it constitutes the bulk of that volume which has ever since been called, _Mackerell’s History of Lynn_. This act or achievement is disreputable to Mackerell’s memory; but the plagiarism has been scarcely known or noticed till now. He makes, in his preface, some slight obscure mention of the MS. but deigns not to tell the author’s name, though it must have been well known to him. He also boasts of his having had free access to the _town records_, and having “diligently searched and perused them, for a considerable time together.” For aught we know, this may be all very true; but if it be so, he must have laboured to very small purpose, as all the discoveries he has been able to make amount to very little, and may be comprised within a very narrow compass.