Gothic prose romances. D'Israeli, in his admirable _Amenities of
Literature_, vol. i. p. 141., says:--

"In some colophons of the prose romances the names of real
persons are assigned as the writers; but the same romance is
equally ascribed to different persons, and works are given as
translations which in fact are originals. Amid this prevailing
confusion, and these contradictory statements, we must agree
with the editor of Warton, that we cannot with any confidence
name the author of any of these prose romances. Ritson has aptly
treated these pseudonymous translators as 'men of straw.' We may
say of them all, as the antiquary Douce, in the agony of his
baffled researches after one of their favourite authorities, a
Will o' the Wisp named LOLLIUS, exclaimed, somewhat
gravely,--'Of Lollius it will become every one to speak with
diffidence.'"

Perhaps this "scrap" of information may lead to something more
extensive.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.


_Henry Ryder, Bishop of Killaloe_ (No. 24. p. 383).--Henry Ryder, D.D.,
a native of Paris, and Bishop of Killaloe, after whose paternity
"W.D.R." inquires, was advanced to that see by patent dated June 5. 1693
(not 1692), and consecrated on the Sunday following in the church of
Dunboyne, in the co. Meath. See Archdeacon Cotton's _Fasti Ecclesiæ
Hibernicæ_, vol. i. p. 404., who gives an account of his family.