Your readers, who may not be conversant with that undeservedly neglected
volume, will confess their obligation, when they have consulted its
pages, in having been directed to so valuable and so original a work. It
may be observed, that those letters of the Countess which are authentic,
are certainly written in a very different style to the one in question;
but this letter, if addressed by her to Sir Joseph Williamson, would be
written under peculiar circumstances, and being in her 84th year, she
might naturally have asked the assistance of the ablest pen within her
reach. I have the copy of an interesting letter, addressed by the late
Mr. John Baynes to Ritson, in 1785, stating his admiration of the
Countess's "spirit and industry, having seen the collections made by her
order relative to the Cliffords--such as no other noble family in the
world can show."
I join in wishing that Mr. Pickering would add a judicious selection
from Drayton's poetical works to his _Lives of Aldine Poets_. To the
list given by your correspondent (p. 28.), may be added a work entitled
_Ideas Mirrour Amours in quatorzains_ (London, 1594, 4to. p. 51.), which
was lent to me about forty years ago, but which I have not seen since.
Some notice of it, by myself, will be found in the _Censura Literaria_.
with the following note by Sir C. Brydges:--"The extreme rarity of this
publication renders a farther account desirable, and also more copious
extracts.
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