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 238 Fertilam MS. ; Relation of Proceedings in Parliament copies at the State Paper Office, are examples of the " True Relation " in what I suppose to be its first form. Variations occur between these several copies, but they are all substantially one, and contain a plain narrative of a somewhat formal character, and occasionally disjointed and fragmentary. The next form of the " True llelation " is that in which it is found in copies which have the title of " The Proceedings, or a Journall of the passages in the Second Session of Parliament holden at Westminster in the 4th yeare of the raigne of our most gratious Soveraigne Lord Charles, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith &c., begunn the 20 day of January and ended the 10th of March, Anno Domini 1628." This is the title of the Hindley MS. and also of the Harleian MS. 4,295. From the insertion of the day of the dissolution of the Parliament in the title, this account may be inferred to be posterior to the other, the title to which reads as if the Parliament were still sitting ; and, in further eorroboration of that inference, all the copies of " The Proceedings " which I have scon, contain additions and particulars not to be found in the before- mentioned MSS. of the " True llelation." Two passages will sufficiently enable any one to distinguish between them : First, at the end of the account for the 23rd Febraan-, 1628-9, there will be found in the MSS. entitled "The Proceed- ings," a paper designated ." Heads of Articles to be insisted on concerning Religion, agreed on at the Sub-committee for Religion." These valuable and very precise resolutions do not appear in the ordinary manuscripts of the ' True Relation." Second, the accounts in these two sets of manuscripts of I lie sitting of the 2nd of March differ materially. The " True Relation " gives at most notes of speeches of Sir John Eliot and Selden, and the Protestation tendered to the House ; " The Proceedings " contains not only those speeches, but a narrative of what actually occurred. On going one step further, we come finally to certain copies of -the "True Relation " which were apparently compiled with greater care than the preceding, and which especially contain a much fuller narrative of the proceedings of the 2nd March. Lord Verulam's MS. is one of these, and the Harleian MSS. 2,305 and 0,800, and the Hargravo MS. 299 belong to the same class. The greater care to which I have alluded is evidenced throughout in a multitude of verbal alterations ; and the narrative of the proceedings of the 2nd March bears upon One will suffice for the identification of the corrected copies of the " True Relation." Under the 23rd Feliruary, there occurs a speech of Sir Humphrey May, in which he remarks: " We are all agreed a word is given; we have wine and oil before us; if you go to punish delinquents, there is vinegar in the wound." In the Verulam and other similar manuscripts, the "word " is altered into " wound." The MSS. of the first and second class read " a word," or " the word."