Page:Scribner's magazine (IA scribnersmagazin16newy).pdf/352

340 variety of luxury. In opening one large folio of some magnificence in book-making, printed in Glasgow in the year 1770, I find an apology for a new edition. Apparently the university and the university press had set their hearts upon doing a fine piece of work, and under the editorship of Dr. Newton they printed, bound, and sold, chiefly among themselves, the larger part of the edition. To the names of the Glasgow men are added those of a number of the most considerable personages of Scotland before the era of Sir Walter Scott. The list represents fairly well the great world of the North at that period, and the titles and well-known names add a conspicuous and interesting feature to this edition.

There is still another old book, marked "very rare," a relic of the days of Milton; it is a copy of his "History of Britain to the Norman Conquest." The volume is labelled "first edition;" yet loath as a possessor of jewels must be to find that a diamond has been replaced by a stone of less pure water, I find myself unable to believe that this old book is a first edition at all! The date of its publication is 1677. Milton died in 1674, and this "History of Britain" was surely published in his lifetime. In the "Biography" we are told that it appeared first in 1670, seven years before the date of the book in my hand; also that the first edition contained a portrait by Faithorne. It is impossible now to say by whom the portrait was made in this, evidently, second edition. The painter's name is not upon the engraving, which is pasted in upon a fly-leaf. Doubtless some enthusiastic owner took it for granted that this was a "first edition," and therefore affixed a printed label with the announcement on the outside of the book below the title.

A very interesting edition of Milton's Poetical Works is the one in seven volumes, owned by Leigh Hunt, with his notes. On the whole, for the reader and lover of poetry this is one of the most delightful books possible. Leigh Hunt remembers what