dly possible, as I gather, for Bliss to
have known of the Durham MS.

[C] Mr. John Morley has called Pattison's standard "the highest of our
time." Bliss's conception of an editor's duties is well illustrated in the
note on p. 73.

[D] "Varium ac multiplicem expetens cultum deus."--_Mori Utopia Lib. II._

[E] Vol. iii., pp. 153 and 154.

[F] Were the unorthodox opinions of Hobbes known to his friends as early
as 1647? If so, Earle could hardly have been very curious in scenting out
heresy, for Clarendon hopes Earle's intercession may secure for him a book
of Hobbes's. (See letters of Clarendon in Supplementary Appendix.)

[G] Professor Jebb, in his edition of The Characters of Theophrastus. I
rejoice to see that Professor Jebb assigns Earle a place of far more
distinction than is implied in the measured tribute of Hallam. His preface
furnishes lovers of Earle with just those reasoned opinions with which
instinctive attraction desires to justify itself; and I take this
opportunity of acknowledging my great obligations to it.

[H] Hallam. The same tone is taken in the article on Earle in the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica."

[I] Mr. Bridges indeed, ("Achilles in Scyros"), finds that this character
has been always with us, and gives it a place in the Heroic Age. The
passage has almost the note of Troilus and Cressida:--

"My invitation, Sir,
Was but my seal of full denial, a challenge
For honor's eye not to be taken up.
Your master hath slipped in manners."

[J] We may compare Matthew Arnold's travelling companion ("Essays in
Criticism," 1st Edition, Preface), who was so nervous about railway
murders, and who refused to be consoled by being reminded that though the
worst should happen, there would still be the old crush at the corner of
Fenchurch Street, and that he would not be missed: "the great mundane
movement would still go on!"

[K] Chaucer could hardly have been well-known in 1811, or Dr. Bliss would
scarcely have quoted in full the most familiar character in his Prologue;
but I could not find courage to excise, or lay a profane hand on any of
his notes.

[L] It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that no disrespect is intended to
the Author of the "Ring and the Book"; but it would be difficult to find
another poet who has had so many of the equivocal tributes of fashion.

[M] Sir Thomas Browne, "Christian Morals."

[N] "So infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical
ratioc