Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/269

 Record of Bibliography and Libmry Literature. 257 poses, I beg to state through you that I would willingly and cheerfully act towards Truro as I have towards the three mentioned places, and on the same condition which accompanied them that is, I would provide a building to cost ^2,000" (applause) "or, in other words, I would treat the four towns alike, or as they are treated in the bequest. If this offer is accepted, I think it would be well to begin the work as soon as con- venient. I am, my dear Mr. Mayor, yours faithfully, J. PASSMORE EDWARDS." WIDNES. On July 6th, Mr. T. Sutton Timmis, J.P., laid the foundation stone of a free library and technical school for Widnes. WAKEFIELD, On July i6th, the Provisional Committee on the Free Library question at Wakefield, unanimously decided to send in a requisi- tion to the Mayor asking him to take a poll of the ratepayers on the ques- tion of adopting the Free Public Libraries Act. IRecorfc of JBfbliograpbp an& Xtbrars ^literature, A Catalogue of a portion of the Library of Edmund Gosse, Hon. M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge. By R. J. Lister. Privately printed for the subscribers at the Ballantyne Press, London. 1893, 4 to - Only 65 copies printed. Pp. xxi., 195. We are afraid that Mr. Gosse's catalogue is another book which ought to have been noticed sooner, though in this case the extremely small number printed has made it difficult of access except to the fortunate sub- scribers. The catalogue is the work of Mr. R. J. Lister, who helped Mr. Frederick Locker in compiling the catalogue of the Rowfant Library, and is an excellent piece of work, to which the Ballantyne Press has done full justice in the matter of print and paper. The collection itself is of great interest, and one which many much wealthier bookmen than Mr. Gosse might well envy. There are no books in it, unless we have overlooked them, earlier than 1600, and very few earlier than 1660. But the array of first editions of the Restoration Dramatists is very notable, and Mr. Gosse is probably justified in his boast that no other library, not even that of the British Museum, possesses so many. Some idea of its wealth in this respect may be given numerically by noting that there are no less than forty-one first editions of works by Dryden ; twenty-four of James Sher- ley ; and eighteen of Aphara Behn ; while Congreve, Farquhar, Otway and other less prolific writers are equally well represented. To the editors of these playwrights Mr. Gosse's help is thus well nigh indispensable, and it has already been given in several instances. Except to their editors, however, the first editions of these later dramatists are not very interesting ; and most collectors will be more inclined to envy Mr. Gosse his unique array of presentation copies of the rarer books, often privately printed, of some of the best known writers of the present day. Messrs. A. H. Bullen, Robert Bridges, Sidney Colvin, Austin Dobson, W. H. Henley, Henry James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rudyard Kipling, Andrew Lang, Frederick Locker, Walter Pater, Coventry Patmore, D. C. Rossetti, W. B. Scott, R. L. Stevenson, Swinburne, and Lord Tennyson, have all contributed to enrich Mr. Gosse's library in this way, and the commonest