Quotations, dates and abbreviations

In quotations, the original spelling and punctuation is retained, and the term ‘sic’ is not used. Dates given before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1752 are given in the old style, but the beginning of the year is dated to 1 January throughout.

For all publications dating to the period of study, the place of publication is London, unless otherwise stated. The names of the biannual odes produced by the laureates for New Year’s Day and for the reigning monarch’s birthday are abbreviated in the footnotes to the year of performance and ‘NY’ (for New Year’s Day) or ‘BD’ (for royal birthday). Further details as to where each ode might be found are given in the Bibliography. For periodicals, naming and differentiation conventions follow those of the Burney Collection online database, except for those periodicals that do not appear on that database.

For those correspondence editions in which each letter is numbered, those numbers (as well as page numbers) have been included in citations. They are designated by ‘lt.’ (‘ltt.’ for plural) to avoid confusion with page numbers.

URLs for works cited in the footnotes can be found in the Bibliography.

In addition, the following abbreviations are used in the footnotes:

Add. MS.: Additional Manuscript

BL: The British Library, London

Bod: The Bodleian Library, Oxford

CTB: Calendar of Treasury Books: 1660–1718, 32 vols (London: PRO, 1904–1958)

CR: The Critical Review

Dryden, Works: John Dryden, The Works of John Dryden, ed. H. T. Swedenberg et al. (20 vols, Berkeley, Calif., 1956–2002)

Gray Correspondence: Thomas Gray, Correspondence of Thomas Gray, ed. P. Toynbee and L. Whibley, 1st edn reprinted with corrections and additions by H. W. Starr (3 vols, Oxford, 1971). Volume I for pp. 1–453, II for pp. 455–909, III for pp. 911–1194

HO: Home Office

LC: Lord Chamberlain’s Department

MR: The Monthly Review

ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

SP: State Papers

Spence, Observations: Joseph Spence, Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men: Collected from Conversation, ed. J. M. Osborn (2 vols, Oxford, 1966)

TNA: The National Archives, London

Warton Correspondence: Thomas Warton, The Correspondence of Thomas Warton, ed. D. Fairer (London, 1995)

‘Whitehead Memoirs’: William Mason, ‘Memoirs of the life and writings of Mr. William Whitehead’, in William Whitehead, Poems, Vol. III, ed. William Mason (York, 1788), pp. 1–129