'Again, in Letter xxxi. of the same volume, on the second last line of page 137, occur the words, "that he obey not the certiorari." On this passage occurs the following query--"The word for 'obey' seems unintelligible. Have I not erred from the original in my copy?" Another case will show how by this examination the errors of the original transcripts were eliminated. In Letter xxxiv., at the bottom of pp. 144-5, occurs the name of Will or William Staunton. It appears this name was first transcribed as "Robert Fraunton" in the right or modern version; on which Mr. Dalton remarks, "It is William in orig." (Mr. Dalton constantly speaks of the transcript in ancient spelling as the "original" in these notes, though it is clear he had not the real original before him at the time he made them). Strangely enough, Mr. Dalton does not suspect the surname as well as the Christian name, but it is clear that both were wrong, and that they were set right in consequence of this query directing the editor's attention once more to the original MS.'
[Footnote 13-1: _Archæol._ vol. xli. p. 39.]
[Footnote 13-2: _See_ Advertisement in the beginning of the volume, p. vii.]
[Footnote 15-1: The following is the exact form in which they stand in the literal or left-hand version:--'Utia'z iste mu'd maligu{ s} t'nsir{ t} & c'up'ia e{ s}.']
[['The care taken by Sir John _opening quotation mark missing_]]
To this I may add some further evidences of Fenn's editorial care and accuracy. When the second volume of my first edition was published in 1874, my attention was called, as already mentioned, to the existence at Holland House of the original of one of those letters[15-2] which I had reprinted from Fenn. It was one of the letters in Fenn's third volume, and only one[15-3] other letter in that volume had then turned up. I carefully compared both these papers with the documents as printed, and in both, as I remarked in the Preface to vol. ii., the exact spelling was given with the most scrupulous accuracy, so that there was scarcely the most trivial variation between the originals and the printed text. But a more careful estimate, alike of Fenn's merits and of his defects as an editor, became possible when, on the publication of the third volume of the same edition, I was able, as I have already shown, to announce at the last moment the result of a cursory inspection of the originals of his third and fourth volumes. And what I said at that time may be here transcribed:--