as he had borrowed them himself, except that I never sought to put them forth as my own discoveries, I was not assailed and insulted by him. I now proceed in the same way, with all possible brevity, through the second volume of his book: merely premising, as a help to those who would have some clue to this perpetual and strange desire to represent as from oral or written communication facts derived from printed sources, that Mr. Prior took occasion in the course of his attack upon me expressly to lay down the doctrine, that what has been printed for any given number of years can no longer be held new, or regarded in the light of a discovery; and as, in his own esteem, he is nothing if not a discoverer, and by consequence a proprietor, of facts, there ought to be little perhaps to surprise the reader in the foregoing and following examples.

At pp. 1-11 of the second volume there is a vast deal about Goldsmith's Oratorio of the Captivity, about the fact of two copies being still extant in his handwriting, and about Mr. Prior being enabled to print for the first time "from that "which appears the most correct transcript;" the reader being kept quite ignorant that already this poem had been printed, from a copy in Goldsmith's handwriting at the least as curious as Mr. Prior's, and certainly as correct (the one having been made for Newbery, and the other for Dodsley, and the latest in transcription presenting only a few changes of text from the other), in the octavo edition of the Miscellaneous Works published by the London "trade" in 1820.

At p. 55 a story is repeated from the recollections of Miss Reynolds, communicated to Mr. Croker, which had already been far better told in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1797. In pp. 80-94 a great clutter is made about the ballad of Edwin and Angelina, as to which all that was really essential is told in pp. 74-76 of the Memoir by Percy, whose personal connection with the dispute arising out of it gives peculiar authority to his statement.

At p. 130 the assertion about Goldsmith's having got a large sum for what might seem a small labour, put forth as an exaggeration reported by others which "he took no

pains to contradict," but to which he would "in sub"stance reply" &c, is all taken without acknowledgment from Cooke's narrative in the European Magazine (xxiv. 94); in which the exaggeration, such as it is, is most emphatically assigned to Goldsmith himself. At P. 135 the whimsical anecdote described to have been told to Dr. Percy, "with some humour by the Duchess of Northumberland," might more correctly have been quoted from p. 68-69 of the Percy Memoir.

At p. 139 there occurs, at last, formal mention of a person "admitted to considerable intimacy with him, Mr. William

Cooke, a barrister, known as the writer of a work on "dramatic genius, and of a poem, &c"; of whom it is added that "he related many amusing anecdotes of the poet from personal knowledge;" but where the anecdotes are to be found is carefully suppressed, nor indeed could any one imagine that they had ever found their way into print. At p. 139-140 a highly characteristic story of Goldsmith is given as from the relation of this Mr. Cooke, "corroborated to the writer by the late Richard Sharpe

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Esq, to whom Mr. Cooke told it more than once;" the story being nothing more than a transcript from Taylor's Records of his Life (i. 107-110), published four years before Mr. Prior wrote.

At p. 140-141, one of Cooke's most amusing stories is ill-told without a mention of its printed source (Europ. Mag. xxiv. 260). At p. 167 an incident is given from Mrs. Piozzi's relation, though with no mention of her book (Anecdotes, 244-246); and connected with it is a formal confirmation of her mistake as to the club's night of meeting, which the very slight diligence of turning to p. 72 of the Percy Memoir would have enabled Mr. Prior to correct. And at pp. 175, 178 (where certain lines are quoted without allusion to an anecdote current at the time that had given them their only point), 181, 182, and 197, circumstances and traits of character are set forth without the least acknowledgment from Cooke's printed papers (European Magazine, xxiv. 170, 422, xxv. 184, xxiv. 172, 261, and 429), with only such occasional mystification of the reader as that "a jest of the poet was repeated by Mr. Cooke" (197), or that "Bishop "Percy in conversation frequently alluded to these "habits" (182).

At pp. 194-196, a long passage is given from Colman's Random Records (i. 110-113); at p. 207 a businessagreement of Goldsmith's as "drawn up by himself" is given from the Percy Memoir (78); and at pp. 220-223 a letter from Oliver to Maurice Goldsmith is copied from the same source (86-89),—without a clue in any of these cases to the book which contains the original.

At p. 237-238 we are informed that Mr. Percival

Stockdale's Memoirs "furnishes scarcely an allusion to "Goldsmith. His papers, however, supply an anecdote "communicated by a lady eminent for her writings in "fiction, his friend, and whom the writer has likewise the "honour, &c. &c. &c." And then the anecdote, professing to be transcribed by Miss Jane Porter from the manuscripts of Mr. Stockdale, turns out to be a literal transcription from that very Memoirs of the worthy gentleman (ii. 136-137), which had been published nearly thirty years before Mr. Prior's book, and in which Mr. Prior had been able to find scarcely an allusion" to Goldsmith.

At pp. 254-269 there is a long rigmarole about the identity of Lissoy and Auburn, and about the alehouse &c rebuilt by Mr. Hogan,-all professing to be the result of written communication or personal inquiry,-not a syllable of which may not be found in Mangin's Essay (140-143); in Mr. Newell's elaborate and highly illustrated quarto edition of the Poetical Works (1811: "with remarks attempting to ascertain chiefly from local observation the "actual scene of the Deserted Village:" 61-80), and in Mr. Hogan's own account in the Gentleman's Magazine (xc. 618-622),-not one of these authorities being once named by Mr. Prior.

At p. 288-289 we have a charming fragment of a letter to Reynolds transferred without acknowledgment from the Percy Memoir (90-91); at p. 300, an agreement with Davies is silently taken from an earlier page (79); at p. 375, a curious letter of Tom Paine's to Goldsmith is so taken from a later page (96-98); and at pp. 328-330, a capital letter is in like manner copied, and not even correctly copied, from the same mal-treated book (92-94).

At p. 309 an anecdote is given from an earlier volume of the magazine which contained the printed papers by Cooke (European Magazine, xxi. 88), but with careful avoidance of any clue to the authority. At pp. 313-321 not a few of the traits of Hiffernan are borrowed from one of Cooke's papers respecting him (European Magazine, xxv. 110-184), still with no hint of any such source. At p. 349-350, a very characteristic story of Goldsmith is copied without allusion from the Percy Memoir (100). At p. 353 an incident is mentioned as "according to the "late Mr. John Taylor," which is simply copied from Taylor's Records (i. 118). And so, at pp. 370 and 401, where the incidents given are silently transcribed from Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 288 and 286).

At p. 381 a pleasant anecdote appears as though originally told, but which Cooke had long before related in print (European Magazine, xxiv. 261); at p. 386-387, two letters are appropriated without allusion to Colman's Posthumous Letters (1820: 180), or to Garrick's Correspondence (1830: i. 527), where they first appeared; at pp. 389, 465, and 481, anecdotes, full of character, which Cooke certainly deserved the credit of having told in print (European Magazine, xxiv. 173, 261, and 262), are given without an allusion to him; at pp. 421 and 473, two anecdotes, the former being one of the most charming recorded of Goldsmith, which had been told in the same magazine, but in a later and an earlier number than those in which Cooke wrote (lv. 443, and xix. 94), are silently taken in the same way; at p. 465-466, a curious trait given as" mentioned by Malone" might as well have been given as copied from his Life of Dryden (i. 518); and, for a