the probability of the case, and without support from external or internal evidence.
Charles Brome must have known, whether the text which he published in 1712 was genuine or not; and the mere fact, that he published it as genuine, without explanation or observation, seems to me to be good primâ facie evidence that it was so. He certainly enjoyed the Bishop's confidence, and had transactions with him in business, as appears by a letter from the Bishop to Dr. T. Smith, dated in 1694, (Anderdon's "Life," p. 425,) in which he requests Dr. Smith to call upon Brome for 50s. on his own (the Bishop's) account, for a charitable purpose.
It is also certain, that, in the retirement of his latter years at Longleat, the Bishop devoted much of his time and mind to poetical pursuits; and he left many poems in manuscript, which were first published after his death. That he should have revised the "Morning," "Evening," and "Midnight," Hymns, (especially after a spurious revision, purporting to be by himself, had gone abroad,) is, at least, not improbable; and if he did so, the text so revised, would, as a matter of course, come into the hands of, and be published by, the owner of the copyright, Brome.
The alterations of 1712 are considered, by those who reject them, inferior in merit to the original text. They do not, as a whole, by any means, seem so to me. On the contrary, I think they have internal evidence of being by the same hand: they improve the rhythm, (in the earlier text frequently defective,) and they do not anywhere injure or disturb the sense. They seem to me just such as the author, revising his early productions at a more advanced period of his life, and such as nobody but the author, would have made. It has been also suggested, that their doctrinal tone is lower than that of the original text: but I confess I am not myself able to perceive that difference.
Nor do I think that there is any sufficient argument to the contrary, derivable from the mere coincidence of some of those alterations with the readings of the "Conference," restricted, as that coincidence is, to the three small points which have been already mentioned. The author of the "Conference" was a friend of Dodwell's, and he may very
