Another prolific typographer was Richard Pynson, of whom there were 13 items, among them the Tunstall, 1522, the first arithmetic book printed in this country; the Froissart and Chaucer, and Palsgrave, 1530, the first French dictionary and grammar produced in England. Next come Julian Notary, Richard Faques, J. Rastell; then the second François Regnault of Paris with four specimens of his numerous Horae B.M.V. for Salisbury use in both English and Latin. Treveris, Redman, Banks, Andrewe, Reynes, and others of the period must be dismissed with merely honourable mention on account of want of space. From the prolific press of the King's printer, Thomas Berthelet, there were 15 items, including Law, English Classics, and translations of Greek authors, the work of his assistants and successors, T. Powell and H. Wykes, occurring later on in the Catalogue.

Richard Grafton, another King's printer, is the next important figure, and, together with E. Whitchurch, produced the first Great Bible of 1539. The latter printed also the first and second Prayer Book of Edward VI, and other important items. Wayland, Hester, Toye, Wolfe pass next in order, then John Day, sometime in association with W. Seres, printed many notable books, as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1562-3, the first English Euclid, 1570, besides numerous. educational and controversial works. Cawood may be mentioned for his interesting Proclamations, passing on to Waley, Purfoot, father and son, Kele and Jugge; of the latter's books may be mentioned Eden and Willes' Travayle in the Indies, 1577. Passing Scoloker, Copland and others one arrives at Ipswich, the ninth provincial town to commence printing (1548). The press of John Oswen is represented by fragments of a book of Prayers otherwise unknown, and the publisher J. Overton by the Bale of 1548, printed for him at Wesel. Veale, Crowley (1st and 2nd editions of Piers Plowman) Gaultier (Reynard the Fox, 1550), Wight, Riddell (Dean Nowell's copy of Huloet 1552), next pass in review until Tottell is met with, of whom there are 11 items, sometimes in partnership with either T. Marsh or H. Binneman. That it was possible at that period to spell one's name in six different ways and yet expect to preserve one's identity is illustrated by Tottell's Year Books for 1556-70. Two early books on Heraldry (Bossewell and Leigh) were well turned out by the same printer.

Kingston's Chaucer, 1561 (with Pynson's woodcuts and also without them), his Machiavelli's Arte of Warre 1560-2, his Bullen's Bulwarke against Sickness 1562, need no enlarging upon one must notice however the impartiality of a publisher who produces one book calculated for the destruction or maiming of man, and another soon after for his benefit and the curing of ills possibly caused by the first.

Interesting as the other presses are, one must be content with only naming Tisdale, Marsh (printed Elyot, Stow, Ascham, Newton's Seneca, 1581), King, Kitson, Powell (first Latin grammar and dictionary), L. and J. Harrison (Holinshed, 1577, no doubt the source of the Shakespeare historical Plays), Trutheall (probably á false name), Wykes, Bradshaw, Allde, father and son (Frampton's

Newfound Worlde 1596, Harcourt's Guiana 1626), Denham, Newbery, Watkins, Vautrollier (first English Plutarch 1579), Bishop (first Hakluyt 1598), Binneman, Middleton; then Thos. East with Malory's King Arthur, Batman upon Glanville 1582, Yonge's Musica Transalpina 1588, Wilbye's Madrigals 1598.

Thomas Dawson in 1587 printed the first English book on Swimming, by Digby 1587. After C. Barker and J. Roberts comes R. Barker, with the King's Edict against Duelling 1613 and the Decree of the Star Chamber concerning Printing 1637. Then W. Ponsonby with the first edition of the Faerie Queen 1590 and Spenser's Complaints 1591, and Prothalamion 1596. J. Barnes at Oxford is one of the next presses, and is represented by 9 items, one of them being "the first book printed in Oxford after the revival of printing in 1585"; another being Fitz-Geffrey's Sir Fr. Drake, the only copy known; and another being dedicated to the great Bodley.

Arbuthnet and Waldegrave at Edinburgh and the latter at Coventry (secret press) are next noticed. Then R. Field with his Poems of Harington, Marbecke's Defence of Tobacco 1602, and the first English Odyssey by Chapman T. Thomas at Cambridge with a book printed in 1584 "the first year of revival of printing at Cambridge." Chapman's Iliad (the first) is one of the next important, and was produced by J. Windet in 1598. Lambarde's Kent 1596. from Bollifant's house, is next, then Hatfield, Waterson, Simson (with his Montaigne 1603), Norton (Gerarde's Herbal 1597), Lownes (Drayton [1612]), Short and Yardley (Morley's Music 1597, Gilbert's De Magnete 1600), Islip (first English Pliny and Livy). Creede (Roger Bacon 1597), J. and W. Jaggard, F. Kingston, Smethwick.

We now arrive at W. Stansby with his Coryat 1611, Shelton's Don Quixote 1612, the fifth quarto Hamlet, Ben Jonson's Works, Bacon's Henry VII, Purchas His Pilgrimes, there being 15 items from this important press. H. Tomes (appropriate and significant name) was responsible for Bacon's Advancement of Learning 1605, first edition, and in sharp contrast to this, Wilson's Commendation of Cocks and Cockfighting 1607, the first English treatise on the subject and of just as much importance in the opinion of the "bucks" of the period as was its predecessor.

With Chapman's May Day, 1611 (J. Browne), we arrive at the last of the printers and publishers whose businesses were established before 1600, and therefore the remainder must be treated more summarily, however important, giving more prominence to the author than the printer.

The name of Shakespeare fitly commences the new period with his (?) Sir John Old-castle 1600, and the Yorkshire Tragedy 1619: T. Pavier must be remembered as their publisher. Dekker and Webster's Westward Hoe 1607; White's Century of Scandalous Priests (slating George Washington's great-grandfather for loose habits); the first Quarles next follows, then nine items printed for the Stationers' Company 1607-1763, one being the tiny London Almanack for 1706.

John Bill has the credit of Bacon's Novum Organum 1620; N. Butter that of the second quarto King Lear 1608. Lichfield of Oxford in 1621 among others gave us Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy ; N. and J: Okes several plays, and Bacon's Life and Death 1638.

From the Hague (Baudois) we get two editions of J. de Gheyn's Exercise of Arms, one with the early date of 1607. Eton printing is represented by its first book Gregorius Nazianzenus 1610, by J. Norton. Fynes Morison, John Taylor, Quarles, Braithwaite, Capt. J. Smith, Dekker, are all names of note whose works appeared at this period. We then in 1623 meet with the first folio Shakespeare, which we owe to the enterprise of W. Jaggard and his partners and to the typographical care of Isaac Jaggard. There were two copies on view, one differing from the other in certain details. For convenience of comparison the Second, Third and Fourth folios were grouped together in the Exhibition, but in the Catalogue appear under the names of their respective printers. Of the Second, by Thomas Cotes, there were three examples, each with a different publisher's name on title. Of the Third, published by P. Chetwinde, there were two copies, one with, and the other without, the portrait on title-page. Of the Fourth, by Herringman, there were three copies, each with different imprints.

The remainder of the century brought forth many books now household words, but with which we have not space to deal. These authors include Sir T. Browne, Withers, Marston, Fuller, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Hobbes, Milton, Herrick, Walton, Dugdale, Newton, Dryden, Bunyan. One should not perhaps omit to mention. "the first handbook of printing in the English language" by Moxon, 1683, remarkable as containing an alleged portrait of the all-but mythical predecessor of Gutenberg, namely Lourenz Janszoon Coster.

With the name of Jacob Tonson the 18th century is ushered in. the shining literary lights thereof including Vanbrugh, Steele, Defoe. Watts, Gay, Fielding, Sterne, Johnson, Goldsmith, Pope, Franklin. Cowper, Beckford, Coleridge, Sheridan and Smollett.

One need only say that the out-standing presses of this period as Baskerville's at Birmingham, Gent's at York, Walpole's at Strawberry Hill, were well represented, and to round off an already very lengthy summary by mentioning that interesting "sideshows" (but by no means any less-important) were provided in the shape of Broadsides, Proclamations, Type-sheets, Portraits, Views, Autograph letters and Documents, all illustrative of the Book Trade.

It seems a great pity that such an Exhibition as that which we have outlined above should not be an institution of annual occurrence, for in our own humble opinion it would be greatly appreciated in literary and artistic circles. As a rule, in exhibitions of a general kind the class of books is very poorly treated and poorly represented, just as though they were of any less importance than many other treasures of art and craftsmanship. Yet a book should

be considered as a wonderfully complex article, produced of the united skill (cerebral and manual) of several workers :-author, designer and engraver, compositor, pressman, binder (not to except the printer's reader !).

But then comes the important question-How? The Committee of the I.A.A.B. could not be expected to annually subsidise a show, which, however attractive from many points of view, does not help to fill, but to deplete their coffers. Here then is the opportunity for wealthy individuals or public bodies interested in education, technical or other, to devote part of their funds to its extension on broader lines than hitherto, in encouraging the study of the work of the pioneers of an Art which is itself indispensable for the propagation of knowledge.

Then there is the question-Where? The happy though obvious thought then strikes one that the Company of Stationers having, as we have seen, an ideal habitation for this purpose, should annually hold a Loan Exhibition, each one to consist entirely of the work (as far as obtainable) of certain Masters of the Craft of Printing in early times.

This could only be done by bringing together all available specimens of a man's work from all sources,-from the Universities, and other Public and Private Libraries in this country-to which assemblage the Antiquarian Booksellers might be allowed to contribute.

Imagine what a well-organised exhibition of say, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet or Grafton would be with every known specimen of their art brought together, probably for the first time. What a splendid opportunity for the bibliographer, for often it is only by actual comparison of editions side by side that the true chronology of a particular press can be made out, variants exactly distinguished, and some of the petty yet important mysteries surrounding the press cleared up.

No doubt an Exhibition on these lines would bring to light many editions hitherto unsuspected, and, possibly, unknown works.

We have revivals in other walks of life-why not make an effort to revive the enthusiasm of last century, and help to foster the reasonable and healthy pursuit of the study and collecting of Old Books, to which silent companions, whatever the point of view, we all owe so much, more than we at first see or realise.

If our hopes in this matter are realised in the near future we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the retention of a custom just discontinued, an onerous duty turned into a pleasurable one, and undertaken, not by Book-publishers but Book-lovers, namely that of ENTERING AT STATIONERS' HALL.

[There will be some who will recognise in "Gualterus Dumblanensis" the hand of one of the best living authorities upon the subject of early-printed books. The article was written under very great pressure of time and work, and it was only the writer's very well-known kindly nature that prompted him not to refuse a request without acquiescence to which my subscribers would have had no such introduction to this 'year's volume. The writer's modesty equals his ability, for he absolutely declined to sign the article with anything but a pseudonym. Ed.]

BIBLIOTHECA IMPERFECTA

BY A. R. CORNS, F.L.A., City Librarian, Lincoln.

HE chapter of English literary history which deals with unfinished books and with fragmentary writings is one of mingled pathos and pleasure to the book-lover of ardent soul. Pathos in that it is a sorrowful business to have to chronicle on the fly-leaf of some treasured favourite "vol. 1., all published," pleasure in that there have been authors, in no great numbers I grant you, who by some rare power of correct evaluation of their works, have esteemed it better to conclude their labours within the boards of a single volume, to their own advantage and to the advantage of everybody else. But if the burden of this weary old world has been eased by this desire of authors to preserve their literary reputation, there are, on the other hand, instances not a few of writers who have impoverished literature by the high and relentless standard by which they have judged the coinages of their minds. The worthiness of authors to sit in judgment upon their own work is a subject old as the hills and one that does not allow of generic decision, but always has there gone up a wail when authors have, some from momentary disgust, some from reasoned intent, strangled their literary offsprings at their birth. And our discursive, book-loving friend, Isaac Disraeli, has placed it on record that men of letters have been known to rise from their death-beds that they might destroy the result of their labours rather than venture the hazard of misjudgment of undiscerning critics. In giving only a dual instance of books that have been cast to the flames mention may be made of Dr. Johnson's burning of "An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, by Himself," a manuscript which even the usually all-embracive eyes of Boswell had not seen, and of the much-discussed burning of Sir Richard Burton's great work 'The Scented Garden" by his widow.

In preambling fashion it may be of interest to consider the large number of books that have been projected but that have never reached the public. As a result of the lessening, almost to vanishing point, of the desire of readers for the tall tomes of our forefathers, of their fondness for the easy summaries that come from the press in tumultuary numbers, and of the mediocrity of the public taste, book-production has been made dangerously easy. Almost every man of average culture, it would seem, has a magnum opus at the back of his head," which, with boundless optimism and the appalling audacity of ignorance, he is convinced will take an honoured place amongst the aristocrats of literature, amongst the books of all time. But by some benign dispensation the vast majority of these schemes never materialize, and our gratitude goes out not only for our presentday escape but also for our escape from the bludgeon criticism of posterity. the other hand, however, there have been great works designed by great men, men who could bring a brilliant genius to the planning of books but to whom the power of execution was denied. It would not be a difficult matter to set out a list of projected books which would have a heart-pang in every entry, and in regarding such a list one might almost be forgiven an Irishism in exclaiming that the best books are those that have never been written !

On

The present-day furnishes us with an instance of a scholar, the late Lord Acton, with unique powers of design and with little executive ability. Of this learned historian it has been said that he "knew too much to write," and it is certainly true that this embracive knowledge, urging its possessor to absolute perfection, has prevented the writing of many books that would have taken classic place in literature. The translator of Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald, could have given to us much excellent work, but his conception of labour was of so high a character that, indolently inclined as he was, he was overawed at the extent of the knowledge that would have to be sifted before he could