Disclaims any wish to be mentioned by PE in an article in the Ed. Review on the recently published edition of Markland's three plays (Eur. Suppl., IT and IA).
Collation of Bodleian mss. of Soph. Ajax, requested by PE for certain passages. Poor sales of PE's Acharnians because of inefficiency of booksellers - hopes the Heracleidae will fare better. Hopes that the rumour is true that PE will publish one of Charles Burney's transcripts from the grammatical ms. in Paris.
Will send account of Scaligus' copy of Eur. for PE's new edition of the Heracleidae. On lost Parisian mss. of Eur. Asks PE to consult an Athenaeus ms. 1st volume of Poetae Graeci Minores completed - PE to receive a complimentary copy. PE going to Paris - TG asks for report on the state of the Royal Library.
Addressed to PE c/o Donat Orsi (bankers) in Florence - received 13th March. Florence library - ms. of Sophoclean scholia. Asks PE to examine 2 mss. of Suidas (Laurentian library and Badia Fiorentina) - get someone to collate half a dozen pages, then decide which deserves a full collation. Costs of collation (900 francs for a similar job in Paris). Problem in Proclus on Hesiod - can PE find a ms.? Also Scholion on Theognis. (Answers to both written in by PE.) Recommends mss. in library of Badia Fiorentina, based on work by Bernard de Montfaucon. Provost of Oriel and political pamphlets. Blomfield's Agamemnon - very good, though much remains to be done. PE's election as select preacher.
Thanks PE for his transcription of the Suidas ms., and asks him to check in the Vatican, if he visits on his way out or back, if there are 2 other mss. Enquires after 2 mss. of Stobaeus in the Palazzo Capodimonte in Naples, if PE finds time - perhaps he could consult a catalogue by Harles before leaving London. News of his own collating and publishing. Why has Bekker gone to Italy? - anything he does is exciting. Recommends an acquaintance in Naples.
Inadequacy of own work. Sorry to hear of PE's change of plan re Sophocles. Praise for first sheet of OT (sent by Collingwood). PE should assert claim to emendations etc. which have been forestalled in Erdfurt's edition - should also publish Aj. Or OC, neither of which Erdfurt has yet done. G. has just been ordained.
Canvassing PE's support for the father-in-law of a friend, Mr Carstairs, in his candidacy for a directorship of the East India Company. Bekker's Theognis - not sure of genuineness of 159 additional verses from the Modena ms., but will print them anyway as an appendix to vol. 1 of Poetae Minores. Vol. 2 to be ready by Christmas - printers busy with index - asks PE for his observations on Archilochus.
