Scribner's magazine . a stone of lesspure water, I lind myselfunable to believe that thisold book is a first editionat all : The date of itspublication is 1677. Mil-ton died in 1674, and this•History of Britain wassurely published in hislifetime. In the Biogra-phy we are told that itappeared first in 1670,seven years before thedate of the book in myhand ; also that the firstedition contained a por-trait by Faithorne. It isimj^ossible now to say bywhom the portrait wasmade in this, evidently,second edition. The j^aint-ers name is not upon theengraving, which is pastedin upon a fly-leaf. Doubt-l
Scribner's magazine . a stone of lesspure water, I lind myselfunable to believe that thisold book is a first editionat all : The date of itspublication is 1677. Mil-ton died in 1674, and this•History of Britain wassurely published in hislifetime. In the Biogra-phy we are told that itappeared first in 1670,seven years before thedate of the book in myhand ; also that the firstedition contained a por-trait by Faithorne. It isimj^ossible now to say bywhom the portrait wasmade in this, evidently,second edition. The j^aint-ers name is not upon theengraving, which is pastedin upon a fly-leaf. Doubt-less some enthusiasticowner took it for grantedthat this was a fii*st edi-tion. and therefore affixeda printed label with theannouncement on the out-side of the book below thetitle. A very interesting edi-tion of ^liltons PoeticalWorks is the one in sevenvolumes, owned by LeighHunt, with his notes. Onthe whole, for the readerand lover of poetry this isone of the most delightfulbooks possible. LeighHunt remembers what. 3^2 A THIRD SHELF OF OLD BOOKS Keats and others have said bv wayof criticism, and in the right placestheii words are jotted on the mar-gins. There is one more literary relicof Milton, an old folio of his proseworks, printed in 1697 ; nothing couldbe more quaint, more clumsy, moreinteresting I Whether his speechesand pamphlets were brought togetherpreviously, or whether this is a first edi-tion of them collectively, I cannot say.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1887
