that Baker's Scriblerian commentary (upon the nursery rhyme "Once
I was a Batchelor, and lived by myself") was the model for later
mock-ballad-criticisms.]

[Footnote 6: For another early instance of our genre and a very
pure one, see an anonymous Cambridge correspondent's critique of
the burlesque broadside ballad of "Moor of Moore-Hall and the
Dragon of Wantley," in Nathaniel Mist's _Weekly Journal_ (second
series), September 2, 1721, reproduced by Roger P. McCutcheon,
"Another Burlesque of Addison's Ballad Criticism," _Studies in
Philology_, XXXIII (October, 1926), 451-456.]

[Footnote 7: _Diary & Letters of Madame d'Arblay_ (London,
1904-1905), III, 121-122, 295: November 28, 1786; July 29, 1787;
William Roberts, _Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs.
Hannah More_ (London, 1834), II, 46, letter from W. W. Pepys,
December 31, 1786.]

[Footnote 8: Advertisement inserted before No. I in a collected
volume dated 1787 (Yale 217. 304g).]

[Footnote 9: The source of the anecdote seems to be William
Jordan, _National Portrait Gallery_ (London, 1831), II, 3, quoting
a communication from Charles Knight the publisher, son of Charles
Knight of Windsor.

The present reprint of Nos. XI and XII of _The Microcosm_ is from
the "Second" octavo collected edition, Windsor, 1788. _The
Microcosm_ had reappeared at least seven times by 1835.]

[Footnote 10: Iona and Peter Opie, _The Oxford Dictionary of
Nursery Rhymes_ (Oxford, 1951), are unable to find an earlier
printed source for this rhyme than the _European Magazine_, I
(April, 1782), 252.]

[Footnote 11: No. XXXVI of _The Microcosm_ is a letter from Capel
Lofft defending the "Middle Style" of Addison in contrast to the
more modern Johnsonian eloquence. Robert Bell, _The Life of the
Rt. Hon. George Canning_ (London, 1846), pp. 48-54, in a helpful
account of _The Microcosm_, stresses its general fidelity to
_Spectator_ style and themes.]

[Footnote 12: Canning's critique closes with an appendix of three
and a half pages alluding to the Eton Shrovetide custom of writing
Latin verses, known as the "Bacchus." See H. C. Maxwell Lyte,
_A History of Eton College_ (London, 1911), pp. 146-147.]

[Footnote 13: As late as the turn of the century the trick was
still in a manner feasible. The anonymous author of _Literary