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 "Dunston."
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.)
On l. 78. (D.) The reference intended by Warton is to Pindar, Nem. Ode vii. l. 46.
On l. 122. (G.):—
"Of night or loneliness it recks me not."
Comus, l. 404.
On l. 142. (G.):—
"So rathe a song."
Wither's Shepherd's Hunting, p. 430. ed. 1633.
On l. 165. (G.):—
"Sigh no more, ladies; ladies, sigh no more."
Shakspeare's Much Ado, ii. 3.
On l. 171. (G.):—
"Whatever makes Heaven's forehead fine."
Crashaw's Weeper, st. 2.
J.F.M.