Note 1 — PREFACE.

“Mr. A. Chalmers,” says Haslewood, “has since given place [sic] to Skelton’s name among the English poets [vol. ii. p. 227]: and having had an opportunity to compare the original edition [that of Marshe, 1568] with Mr. Chalmers’s volume, I can pronounce the text verbally accurate, although taken from the reprint of 1736.” Brit. Bibliogr. iv. 389. As Haslewood was generally a careful collator, I am greatly surprised at the above assertion: the truth is, that the reprint of 1736 (every word of which I have compared with Marshe’s edition—itself replete with errors) is in not a few places grossly inaccurate.—The said reprint is without the editor’s name; but I have seen a copy of it in which Gifford had written with a pencil, “Edited by J. Bowle, the stupidest of all two-legged animals.”