—I am very much obliged to MR. CROSSLEY for his information and obliging offer; but until he is able to find the publication of the piece in question by Curll, and with the date of 1716, he will forgive my doubting whether his memory has not failed him as to the date, as the fact is directly at variance with Pope's own statement to Spence. MR. CROSSLEY is certainly mistaken in thinking that "The two quarto volumes are the only collection of Pope's works that can be called his own, and that Dodsley's edition of 1738 was a mere bookseller's collection." There is abundant evidence that this edition was Pope's own just as much as the quartos, as was also a prior edition of the same small shape of 1736.
C.
Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor (Vol. iv., pp. 9. 137. 180. 236.).
—The main question is, I think, settled; that there is no pretence whatsoever for the supposition that the Lord Mayor is a Privy Councillor; but your last correspondent DN. has fallen into a slight error, which it may be as well to correct. He confounds a summons to the Privy Council with an invitation or notice which is sent (as he truly states) from the Home Office to such noblemen and gentlemen as are known to be at hand to attend at the meeting for proclaiming the sovereign; but which meeting any one may, and the majority do, attend without any such notice. This is the notice that DN. received, and that I myself have received at two accessions; and which no doubt the Lord Mayor and Alderman, and city officers, also receive; but this has nothing whatsoever to do with the Privy Council.
C.
Herschel anticipated (Vol. iv., p. 233.).
—Thomas Wright suspected the motion of the sun in 1750; but I never heard that he was thought mad. See Phil. Mag., April, 1848, where an account of Wright is given.
M.
Sanford's Descensus (Vol. iv., p. 232.).
—ÆGROTUS will find the following in the Bodleian: De descensu Domini nostri Jesu Christi ad Inferos, libri quatuor, ab Hugone Sanfordo inchoati, opera Rob. Parkeri ad umbilicum perducti, 4to. Amst. 1611.