confusion occasioned by the great plague and fire of London.

The castigation bestowed upon Lauder by Bishop Douglas, followed, as it
was, by a terrific 'back-hander' from the brawny arm of Samuel Johnson,
induces me to say that Salandra's 'Adamo Caduto,' though extremely
rare--so rare that neither the British Museum nor the Paris Bibliotheque
Nationale possesses a copy--is _not_ an imaginary book; I have had it in
my hands, and examined it at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale; it is a
small octavo of 251 pages (not including twenty unnumbered ones, and
another one at the end for correction of misprints); badly printed and
bearing all the marks of genuineness, with the author's name and the
year and place of publication clearly set forth on the title-page. I
have carefully compared Zicari's references to it, and quotations from
it with the original. They are correct, save for a few insignificant
verbal discrepancies which, so far as I can judge, betray no indication
of an attempt on his part to mislead the reader, such as using the word
_tromba_ (trumpet) instead of Salandra's term _sambuca_ (sackbut). And
if further proof of authenticity be required, I may note that the 'Adamo
Caduto' of Salandra is already cited in old bibliographies like Toppi's
'Biblioteca Napoletana' (1678), or that of Joannes a S. Antonio
('Biblioteca universa Franciscana, etc.,' Madrid, 1732-1733, vol. iii,
p. 88). It appears to have been the only literary production of its
author, who was a Franciscan monk and is described as 'Preacher, Lector
and Definitor of the Reformed Province of Basilicata.'

We may take it, then, that Salandra was a real person, who published a
mystery called 'Adamo Caduto' in 1647; and I will now, without further
preamble, extract from Zicari's article as much as may be sufficient to
show ground for his contention that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is a
transfusion, in general and in particular, of this same mystery.