R Finch in Rome to PE in Florence. Apologises for not having accomplished PE's 2 commissions. Niebuhr has been ill, and he hopes to persuade Amati on the morrow to collate the 4 mss of Sophocles. Hopes Jenkyns will not succeed Parsons as Master of Balliol (he did). Has heard of a good ms of Suidas in the Roman College. Miller has fallen and hurt his shoulder. The Holy Roman Emperor (??? - tear in letter) has placed restrictions on ruin-hunters. Talk of the dating of some Roman antiquities. Ashbridge and Miller disagree on the merits of Vasi's Itinerary (of Naples).
Copy of a letter to PE (from Monk), re plagiarism. PE had written an anonymous review of Blomfield's Prometheus for the Church of England Quarterly Review, and suggested a few emendations of Athenaeus. Porson (died 1808) during his lifetime had claimed these as his own - therefore plagiarism. Monk (in an anonymous and subsequent review of the same in the CEQR) had alluded to the matter, and PE had written to Gifford (ed. CEQR) asking him to convey to the anonymous Monk that the emendations had occurred to him separately. Here Monk, full of admiration, praise and apology, say that he only wanted to convey Porson's own belief. PE had thought the anon. reviewer was Dobree - Monk concludes that Dobree is absent in Spain, and therefore cannot be the culprit.
Copy of a letter from PE to Monk. He had indeed thought Dobree was the anon. author - and had only wanted a clear statement of what precise emendations were in question. Concludes with a wish for a personal correspondence. (v. Horsfall pp455ff on whole matter.)
Jeffrey (founder CEQR) can't include PE's review of Blomfield's Prometheus in the current number - it is nearly complete, and there is already a long article full of Greek. It will appear in July - meanwhile he returns the paper and encloses
