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Notes
This paper was presented to participants in the Conference on Literary and Historical Editing held at the University of Kansas in September 1978 under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Edwards to Yorke from Turrick, 5 April 1751. Hardwicke Papers: General Correspondence of Philip, 2nd Lord Hardwicke (B.L. Add. Mss. 35606, ff. 16v-17r).
See "Fielding's Novels and the Wesleyan Edition: Some Principles and Problems," in Editing Eighteenth Century Novels, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr. (1975), pp. 9-30.
See English Institute Annual, 1941 (1942), pp. 115-128. Alice Walker's article, "Principles of Annotation: Some Suggestions for Editors of Shakespeare," SB, 9 (1957), 95-105, is concerned exclusively with the annotation of vocabulary.
Moorman, Editing the Middle English Manuscript (1975), p. 94; Schoenbaum, "Editing English Dramatic Texts," in Editing Sixteenth Century Texts, ed. R. J. Schoeck (1966), p. 20.
On this latter point, unknown to me when I annotated the passage, see M. C. and R. R. Battestin, "Fielding, Bedford, and the Westminster Election of 1749," ECS, 11 (Winter 1977/78), esp. pp. 146-147.
As an illustration of how these several kinds of information may be imparted in a note of this complexity, the Wesleyan Edition, p. 405, n. 2, reads as follows: George Lyttelton (see above, p. 3, n. 1) in Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul (May 1747): 'The power of imagination in enthusiastical minds is no doubt very strong, but always acts in conformity to the opinions imprinted upon it at the time of its working, and can no more act against them, than a rapid river can carry a boat against the current of its own stream' (Works, ed. G. E. Ayscough [1774], p. 316). In context this is Lyttelton's crucial argument to prove that St. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus was a true miracle and, consequently, that Christianity itself is a divine revelation: since, Lyttelton maintains, Paul set out on his journey not only disbelieving the Christian faith but intending to persecute its followers, his sudden transformation from infidel to believer cannot be explained by reference to natural causes. For another compliment to Lyttelton as 'a Master of Style, as of every other Excellence', see Fielding's Preface to his sister's Familiar Letters between the Principal Characters in David Simple (1747). Later in Tom Jones (XVIII. iv) Lyttelton's Observations is part of the background of Square's conversion (see below, p. 952, n.2).
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