« wit, improved afterwards to a more substantial reputation for what he has wrote, as well in verse, as prose: << but a poem he began of great and general expectation « among his friends, had he lived to compleat it, would « doubtless have very much advanced, and compleated his << fame. >>

ADD,

(a) K. JAMES's Essais of a Prentice in Poetry, by M.r R. P. Gillies. in-4.9

(b) D. J. D. WHITAKER's Piers Plowman. 1813, in-4.o (c) Piers Plowman's Creede. 1814, in-8.0

(d) GRIFFIN's Fidessa. 1815, in-8.0

(e) CL. BARKSDALE'S Nympha Lybethris, by Sir E. Brydges. 1815, in-12

(f) W. PERCY's Cælia.

Lee Priory Press. in-4.o

(g) RT. SOUTHWELL's Poems. 1817.

(h) TUSSER'S Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, by D. Mavor. in-4.0

(i) CHALKHILL's Thealma, by Singer. in-12.

(j) B. BARNES's Century of Sonnets, reprinted in Park's

Heliconia.

(k) A. MUNDY's Miscellany of Songs, in Park's Reprint of the Harleian Tracts.

Many of these REPRINTS are themselves very rare : and the whole together would form a curious collection : with the addition of the publications of OLDYS, WARTON, PERCY, RITSON, and GEORGE Ellis.

NOTE VI.

ON RARITY OF BOOKS.

Ir is always desirable to make the distinction between those, whose reputation has sunk into oblivion; and those, who never enjoyed any reputation. To obtain this knowlege such a work as this of Edward Phillips is much better fitted than a modern compilation. The notice contained in a mere modern compilation, which boasts of its minuteness and accuracy, is often founded only on the discovery of the existence of a rare volume, that affords no test of the manner in which it was received by cotemporaries.

If many authors enjoyed reputation in their own time in right of ephemeral merit, many who were justly entitled to it, afterwards lost it by accidental and capricious changes of language and taste. In making and applying this distinction, the testimony of judicious and well-instructed. cotemporaries is a great assistance.

There is undoubtedly a disposition in collectors to exagerate the value of a rarity which they possess: it is necessary therefore to be on our guard against the desire to discover injustice in the fate of what has fallen into oblivion, or has never obtained notice. A work like the present seems to me well calculated to guide the judgment on this point.

We hear a good deal of raillery and ignorant scorn applied to what is called the Bibliomania. Where it is a

mania, (and unquestionably it is so in some persons,) I never can percieve that it hurts any one but him who is afflicted with it.

To the cause of literature it certainly is not injurious:

on the contrary, it remunerates many industrious ministers to this taste, for the labour of the researches to which they are thus prompted and it furnishes Public Libraries with the REPRINTS of works, which the Learned may thus gratuitously consult; and of which the expence would not otherwise be incurred.

NOTE VII.

LORD BYRON.

WHILE this sheet was preparing for the press, the afflicting intelligence arrived of the death of LORD BYRON, who expired on Missolonghi in Greece, of an inflammatory fever of ten days' continuance, on 19.th April, 1824, at the age of 36 years, and nearly three months. The poetical character of Lord Byron is one which cannot justly be drawn by a short, superficial, and rapid sketch; nor at the moment when such a loss to literature first agitates the mind. Indiscriminate and unchastised praise is of little value; and would be especially dangerous in a case where so many splendid and seductive beauties were mingled with

so many dangerous shades: but who would calmly and coolly register and perpetuate his criticisms at such a moment?

Three others poets not of the same very brilliant and extraordinary endowments have died while this sheet was preparing the REV. THOMAS MAURICE, of the British Museum: RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT Esq. aged 74; and CAPEL LOFFT Esq.

June 18, 1824. « We have to announce the death of that veteran in politics and literature, Capel Lofft Esq. He died 26.th May, at Montcallier, near Turin. » (Times.) He was born about 1751.

I embrace this opportunity of saying something of an intimate friend and companion of Lord Byron, who preceded the great poet to the grave by almost two years. « This highly gifted person was unhappily snatched from the world before his genius and many virtues were sufficiently acknowleged to cast into the shade his errors. » He was drowned off Leghorn, in July 1822. He was eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, of Castle-Goring, in Sussex, Bart

The freedom of his religious opinions expressed in a juvenile poem, (published, however, if I recollect, without his consent, or knowlege,) brought them and their author into unfortunate notice. I am entitled to apply to him the following truly beautiful passages from the poem of a friend who knew him intimately from boyhood.

« In the world's desert he had stood alone,
Without a tree to shelter his frail being
From its unpitying storms; he had been driven
Far from his land, his sister, and his home,
Ere years had ripen'd into manhood strength,
And skill to pilot mid the hidden shoals,

And rocks and quicksands, upon which high hearts
Are often wreck'd in unsuspicious youth,

His inexperienced bark. »

«He thirsted for his likeness; and he found
No bosom that could sympathise with his,
Or dive into the fountains of his mind's
Deep mysteries; none who could hold intercourse
Or commune with his soul. Their language seem'd
As of a distant and a savage land,

Sonnds unintelligible, that could make
No music to his ear, awake no chord

Of music in his thoughts; he spoke, and lips
Of mute and motionless ice replied to lips