"The reader will observe that the words 'by the author,' in this
extract, are not accompanied by marks of quotation. The fact, however,
is stated as if he knew it for such, by the quoter of the document."
The difference mentioned by DR. RIMBAULT between the initials in the
title-page and those appended to the dedication, occurs also in Mr. Smith's
edition. But the dedication to which the initials R.P. are affixed, speaks
of the book as the work of the writer in the most unmistakeable terms. Was
the S. in the place of the P. a typographical error, perpetuated by
carelessness and oversight; or a mystification of the author, adopted when
the success of the book was uncertain, and continued after the dedication
had contradicted it, by that want of attention to minutiæ which was more
frequently manifest in former times than at present?
Mr. Leigh Hunt informs us that the Countess of Northumberland, to whom the
dedication is made, was the lady to whom Percy addressed his _Reliques of
Ancient Poetry_. "She was a Wriothesley descended of Shakspeare's Earl of
Southampton, and appears to have been a very amiable woman."
Permit me to take this opportunity of saying, that there is a misprint in
the poem by Barry Cornwall (Vol. ii., p. 451.), by which the title of a
poem from which a quotation is made, appears as the name of a _dramatis
persona_. "Paris" is the title of a poem by the Rev. Geo. Croly, from which
the "motto" is quoted.