204 Lag's Elegy and Other C'HAr Books. 



Dumfries." (Cuthbert M'Lachlan was printing in Dumfries at 

 least as early as 1794). 



Title-page of 12-mo. volume, G2 pages: "The Surprizing 

 xVdventures of John Roach, Mariner, of Whitehaven, containing a 

 genuine account of his cruel treatment during a long captivity 

 amongst the savage Indians and imprisonment by the Spaniards 

 in South America ; with his miraculous preservation and deliver- 

 ance by Divine Providence, and happy return to the place of his 

 nativity, after being thirteen years amongst his inhuman enemies. 

 Dumfries : Printed by Robert Jackson, 1788. Price sixpence." 

 At end : " John Roach, Whitehaven." On a copy belonging to 

 Mr S. R. Crockett is this note, at the end of the " Contents " : 

 " Mr M'lod, the Bookseller, minded seeing John Roach in 1788 

 going about selling this Pamplet of his advs, and he was 

 semenly much worn, aparently above fourty, near Whitehaven." 



As an early example of the work of the Dumfries press Mr 

 Macmath sent a copy of " Sober-mindedness press'd upon Young 

 People in a Discourse on Titus II. vi.," by Matthew Henry (1715). 

 From the terms of the advertisement at the end (he wrote) it 

 seemed probable that this was one of the first things Robert Rae 

 threw off after he commenced business in the town. The adver- 

 tisement was in these terms : " These are to give notice that any 

 who have occasion to publish books, pamphlets, or print burial- 

 letters, etc., may have them printed at Drumfries : And that book- 

 sellers, chapmen, and others may be furnished with several sorts 

 of books, catechisms, and pamphlets, at reasonable rates, by 

 Robert Rae, at his Printing-house in the Kirk-gate : and at his 

 shop on the east side of the street, a little below the Fish Cross : 

 where they may also have books sufficiently bound very reason- 

 ably." 



After an introductory reference to the literaiy advantages of 

 to-day, Mr Miller said : " In the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries there was no plentiful supply of literature at once good 

 and cheap : consequently the masses were obliged to be content 

 with the indifferent mental pabulum provided by the chapmen. 

 In the days of the Stuarts these hawkers generally carried ballads 

 or other broadsides which they recommended to possible pur- 

 chasers in language like that used by Autolycus in describing his 

 wares to the blushing Mopsa. The chapbook proper, which is 

 a stitched tract of small size printed for sale by ' flying stationers,' 



