"_Firm was their faith_" (Vol. ix., p. 17.).--Grateful as I am to all who
think well enough of my verses to discuss them in "N. & Q.," yet I cannot
permit them to be incorrectly quoted or wrongly revised. If, as F. R. R.
alleges, I had written in the third line of the stanza quoted--"with _firm_
and trusting hands"--then I should have repeated the same epithet (_firm_)
twice in three lines. Whereas I wrote, as a reference to _Echoes from Old
Cornwall_, p. 58., will establish, _stern_.