[4] I do not forget Crabbe--that sweet and gentle versifier. But the romantic element is wholly wanting in him. Very probably Sir Wilfrid Lawson would vehemently protest that Crabbe deserves to be reckoned among the greatest of the great. Was not his first poem entitled _Inebriety_? When a child I used to be told that Bloomfield’s _Farmer’s Boy_ was equal to Spenser, but I concluded that Spenser must be very dull, and conceived a horror of the _Faery Queen_ in consequence. [5] The lists of “church goods”--_i.e._ of the contents of our churches--during the reign of Edward the Sixth, are to be found in the Record Office. Many of them have been printed _in extenso_; they make up in the aggregate a large mass of documents, and some account of them may be found in the seventh and ninth reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. Among the miscellaneous books of the Exchequer is a visitation book of the Archdeacon of Norwich for the year 1368, which contains a very minute account of the contents of every church in the archdeaconry, including service books, vestments, sacred vessels, banners, processional crosses, ornaments, &c., all set down in detail, the names of the donors being frequently given, and sometimes the value of the more precious articles being stated. Some years ago I stumbled upon an inventory of the contents of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Warwick, drawn up in 1467, extending over five folio pages. It seemed to me, on a cursory inspection, to be a document of great value as illustrative of this subject. I know not whether it has ever been printed; if not, perhaps Warwickshire antiquaries may be glad to be referred to it--_Miscell. Books of the Exchequer_, Q.R. No. 30. The inventory begins at fol. cci. [6] Why _will_ not the printers’ readers let me use this word? I _do_ use it every day of my life in talk; why may I not write it and print it? It is very short, and it is perfectly harmless. I am afraid it must mean something bad in Finnish or some other strange tongue, for the _reader_ always draws my attention to it. [7] Fact! Old Biddy’s habit of _dashing it_ is so confirmed that there’s no hope of her outgrowing it. [8] Inasmuch as the _general reader_ has a strong objection to the use of Decimals, it will be a comfort to him to be assured that _multiplying_ by ·0001 is the same thing as _dividing_ by 10,000; and so ·0001 (x - m)² is only another way of writing ((x - m)²)/10,000 [9] It has been only of late years that any Christian ministers other than those ordained by the bishops of the Church of England have been called “clergymen” among us. The nonconformists were always called “ministers” or “preachers.” I find myself driven to use the words “clergy” and “minister” in the old way, to avoid conveying a wrong impression to my readers. Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.