substituted most tastelessly for the "What could not work" of Jonson, which is absolutely necessary for the symmetry of a most carefully studied piece. If these words are placed in front of the two lines which precede them, the construction will be selfevident:

"What could not work

The cold of Mosco, and fat Irish air,

His often change of clime (though not of mind);
At home, in his repair, was his blest fate."

The parenthesis is in the original.

P. 161.

Thou art but gone before,

Whither the world must follow: and I, now,

Breathe to expect my When, and make my How.] Southey was greatly struck with these lines, and notes, "His own anticipation of death. A fine manly strain."

P. 163. On Cheveril the lawyer.] A cheveril-conscience was a conscience that would stretch like kid-skin. See The Poetaster, vol. ii. p. 382. See also post, p. 172, which shows that the present epigram had hit hard.

P. 164. On Margaret Ratcliffe.] I have been more fortunate than Gifford in tracing the history of the object of these exquisite lines. She was a great beauty and wit, and a favourite Maid of Honour of Queen Elizabeth. She died in November, 1599, aged 24, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. See Prefatory Notice, vol. i. p. 10.

P. 166. Note (8). Robert, Earl of Salisbury.] This note is well worth reading, as exhibiting Gifford in one of his most rabid moods: "When the time shall come for Walpole himself to be added to the number of Noble Authors, by a sterner biographer than Mr. Parke, he will, if fairly represented, be found to be one of the most odious and contemptible of the whole Catalogue." There must have been some private cause of dislike to account for this extreme virulence of abuse, and it may, perhaps, have been connected with some grievance of his friend Hoppner, the painter, who was more likely to have come in contact with Walpole, and who also disliked him heartily, as may be seen in his excellent article in the first number of the Quarterly Review. With reference to the estimate of Walpole's talents, it must be remarked in justice to Gifford, that his marvellous powers as a letter writer were unknown in 1816. Even the letters to Montagu were then unpublished, and none indeed known, except such as were selected by himself for the quarto edition of his works. More abuse of Walpole will be found further on, vol. ix. p. 6.

P. 167. On my first son.] The abuse of Drummond contained in note (9) is best answered by asking the reader to turn to vol. ix. p. 390, and read what the "vile calumniator" really did "report."

P. 169. I have no salt, no bawdry he doth mean.] In spite of Gifford, the word sallets still holds its own in Hamlet, and is likely to do so. "Sawte bytche of my lorde Bonner," is one article in the Table of Contents of "Yet a course at the Romyshe Fox."

P. 172. Note. To Francis Beaumont.] Beaumont's famous letter, which Gifford strangely omitted to print, will be found at vol. i. p. 172, of the present edition. It is not to be forgotten, however, that Jonson told Drummond that "Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses." Vol. ix. p. 378.

P. 173. On Poet-Ape.] I have no doubt there is some connection between this epigram and a remarkable passage in Poetaster, vol. ii. p. 371:

"Are there no players here? no poet-apes,

That come with basilisk's eyes, whose forked tongues
Are steep'd in venom, as their hearts in gall?”

P. 175. Note. To William lord Mounteagle.] The poem mentioned at the end of this note should of course be Castara, not Castora. It was published in 1634.

P. 176. To Fool, or Knave.] Gifford remarks that Jonson frequently used the word to stroke for to flatter. See vol. vi. p. 78, where "my lady's stroker" is used for "my lady's she-parasite."

P. 180. To Thomas earl of Suffolk.] This is the Lord Suffolk who "ushered" Jonson and Sir John Roe from a masque, see vol. ix. p. 378. He was the father of the infamous Countess of Essex.

P. 182. To Courtling.] In this little piece there are two small, but quite unnecessary departures from the genuine text. In the second line, "doth dine" should be "dost dine;" and in the fifth, "thy prejudice" should be "the prejudice."

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P. 183. In solemn cyprus, th' other cobweb lawn.] Cotgrave has Crespe, Cipres, also cobweb-lawn," so there would seem to have been little difference between them. Most probably Cypres (so Jonson speaks it, as well as Cotgrave), was black, and cobweb-lawn white.

P. 183. Item, a gulling imprese for you, at tilt.] See ante, p. 159, and post, p. 343.

P. 188. To Lucy countess of Bedford.] Drummond notes that the epigram on "my lady Bedford's bucke" was among the "most common places of his repetition." Vol. ix. p. 372.

P. 188. To sir Henry Goodyere.] This Sir Henry Goodyere must not be confounded with his uncle, whose daughter he married, and whose estate of Polesworth he inherited. The tetrastich quoted by Camden must have been addressed to the uncle.

P. 190. On captain Hazard, the cheater.] Whalley says that Cheater and Gamester were "synonymous terms in Jonson's age." Here Cheater certainly means one who plays falsely, and I have no doubt it has always done so.

P. 191. And shoe, and tye.] These were introduced from France, and hence shoe-tye became a name for a traveller. So Shakspeare, "Master Forthright, the tilter, and brave Master Shoetye, the great traveller." Measure for Measure, A. iv. S. 3.

P. 191. Or hung some Monsieur's picture on the wall.] In the hope, I suppose, that it would have the effect of the peeled sticks in Scripture.

P. 194. And the Gazetti, or Gallo-Belgicus.] For a note on Gazettes, see The Fox, vol. iii. p. 211; and for the Gallo-Belgicus see Poetaster, vol. ii. p. 502.

P. 195. At Bill's.] This noble old printer and publisher is still represented by two opulent families descended from him. The one settled at Storthes Hall, in Yorkshire, the other at Farleigh, in Staffordshire.

P. 195. To sir John Radcliffe.] I have not been able to discover any particulars of the death of the first brother, or whether he was older than the sir Alexander Radcliffe, who was killed with sir Conyers Clifford in the Curlew Mountains near Sligo, in August, 1699. On this occasion Essex wrote to the queen: "Too much of the unhappy province of Connaught, I have written to my L.L.: to your maj. only this, that if your maj. be not gracious to poor Jack Radclyffe, in bestowing his wardship on him, he that is heir of a brave race, and has lost his two older brothers in your maj. service, is utterly undone; his last worthy brother who did as much honour to his name by his death as ever any young gentleman did, hath so impaired the estate, as without your maj. goodness it is irrecoverable." This fight at the Curlews was not honourable to the English arms, but the rout at Rhé, in which "poor Jack Radcliffe" was destined to be slain, was infinitely more disgraceful. As Holles wrote to Strafford, “No man can tell what was done, nor no account can be given how any man was lost, not the Lieu

tenant-Colonel how his Colonel, or Lieutenant how his Captain, or any one man knows how another was lost. This only every one knows, that, since England was England, it received not so dishonourable a blow." Strafford Letters, vol. ii. p. 42.

P. 197. With Master Donne's Satires.] As this epigram was published in 1616, and no earlier edition of Donne's Satires is known than that of 1633, it may be presumed that the volume sent to the Countess of Bedford must have been a manuscript transcript such as is now in the British Museum with the date of 1593. There is, however, a letter from Donne to Sir H. G., dated "Vigilia Sti. Tho. 1614," in which he mentions his resolution to print his poems, "not so much for public view, but at mine own cost, a few copies," and there can be little doubt that Mr. Collier is right in his conjecture that a "now lost edition of his Satires was once in circulation."

P. 198. To sir Henry Savile.] In the Discoveries (vol. ix. p. 164), Jonson speaks of Sir Henry Savile, as "grave and truly lettered." When he told Drummond that "the first foure bookes of Tacitus were ignorantly done in English," he was speaking of the Annals, which were translated by a totally different person.

P. 200. To John Donne.] Gifford's assertion in the note that Jonson's vocabulary "has no peculiarities,” is very amusing. I began a list of them, but soon desisted. In the third line of this epigram for instance:

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"That so alone canst judge, so alone dost make," the word make is so often used by him in this sense of "compose poetry" as to amount to a peculiarity." In the last line but one there are no fewer than three unnecessary commas. By placing one after "burst," the sense (!) becomes "their backs are to be loaded till they burst," whereas it really means "they load them until they burst (i.e. break) their backs.

P. 201. By his each glorious parcel to be known.] Each parcel is here used for each part or particular.

P. 203. On Playwright.] In the note Gifford calls those wretched victims Henry Weber and Stephen Jones a "case of asses." As he had only found out the meaning of the word at p. 189, he deserves some credit for bringing it so speedily into use.

P. 204. Knat, rail, and ruff too.] A knat, or knot, is a bird of the snipe kind.

P. 206. To Mary lady Wroth.] It ought to have been mentioned that Jonson dedicated the Alchemist to this lady. See vol. iv. p. 5. It is pleasant to find that when it became known to

her father's old captains of the Flushing garrison, that his eldest daughter was about to be married, they sent £200 to London "to buy her a chayn of Perle, or otherwise to employ as she pleases. We humbly desyre that it may be accepted as a Remembrance of the love of her poore Servants hear." Sidney Papers, vol. ii. p. 305.

P. 209. To sir Edward Herbert.] Jonson's great critical work on the Art of Poetry was to have been introduced by an epigram of Sir Edward Herbert, the future Lord Herbert of Cherbury, see vol. ix. p. 371. The loss of that portion of the work need not cause much regret.

P. 209. To captain Hungry.] This is a vigorous denunciation of a class of men, of which specimens must have been continually cropping up as they returned from serving out their time with the English, Scotch, and Irish mercenaries, who during James's peaceful reign had been playing such a conspicuous part in the German wars-Dugald Dalgettys, with all his effrontery, and habits of laying in provant, but without his manly and soldierly qualities. They must have been particularly offensive to Jonson, who knew what soldiering was, and with his keen perception of humours must have been doubly able to see through them.

P. 210. Than can a flea at twice skip in the map.] This passage would be much more easily understood if the line preceding this were printed as a parenthesis :

(If but to be believed you have the hap).

P. 210. Nay, now you puff, tusk, and draw up your chin.] Richardson takes for granted that this is the verb, from the common word tusk, and means to show the teeth. But there is another tuske, or "tuske of heyres," which Peter Levins (A.D. 1570) translates by crinetum, and I feel sure that Jonson intended his tuske in this place for pulling out the moustachios, and giving them the appearance of tusks, à la Wild Boar of Ardennes. Mr. Wheatley also quotes, "Tuske of heer, monceau de cheveulx" (Palsgrave). But see Bartholomew Fair (vol. iv. p. 392), "Vapours ! never tusk or twirl your dibble."

P. 213. To make thy lent life good against the fates.] I suppose the editors have taken for granted that "lent life" refers to the temporary tenure on which we hold it. I think, however, that lent in this place means mild and gentle, and is the positive of the comparative "lenter"-"all those lenter heats"—which Jonson uses in the Alchemist, vol. iv. p. 94. The word in either form is, I suppose, peculiar to Jonson, "who has no peculiarities."

P. 214. Clement Edmonds on his Cæsar's Commentaries.] This work, according to Lowndes, was published in three parts from