2i6 Major's Editions. 



in writing an essay on Walton. " In one 

 passage he attempts to gloss over Walton's 

 humble position in early life, and establish 

 a claim for consideration, not so much on 

 his own intrinsic merits, as on the ground 

 of his high relations and fine acquaint- 

 ances a piece of snobbishness which 

 draws on him the justly indignant rebuke 

 of Dr. Bethune." 



Major's first edition contained the old 

 designs by Wale which had figured so often 

 before" greatly heightened in the effect 

 by the pencil of Mr. Frederick Nash " 

 and engraved by Cook and Pye and 

 very good woodcuts of fish. In his second 

 edition (1824) the fourteen copper-plates 

 were re-engraved by W. R. Smith. His 

 third edition was in 1835, an d his last 

 edition (/.*., the last issued by him) in 1844. 

 Mr. Westwood says of this edition : " It 

 was printed, as before, in two sizes crown 

 and royal octavo. The obnoxious "Intro- 

 ductory Essay " still sticks to the work 

 like a burr ; but with this remark our 

 censure exhausts itself; in other respects 

 the volume approaches more nearly to 

 our ideal of an edition consistent in all 

 its parts than any of its predecessors or 

 successors. Wale's designs, repeated ad 

 nauseam, are here suppressed, and a new 

 series by Absolon substituted, embodying 



