540 LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



October, 1589. See Documents relative to reception of tlie King, 

 &c. Edinburgh, 1822." Robert Chambers' enlightened regard for 

 the great dramatist is shewn by the room given him in the "Book 

 of Days," the Journal (especially in the Tercentenary year), and the 

 " Cyclopsedia of English Literature;" and by an edition of the plays 

 adapted to family reading. The stir made a few years since by 

 Robert Chambers' "Vestiges of Creation" was a mild prelude to the 

 widespread commotion raised, at a later time, by the same theoi'ies 

 more explicitly unfolded. To the Shakspearean group of relics I 

 finally add a note transcribed from the autograph of Mr. J. Payne 

 Collier himself, on the subject of the received form of Shakspeare's 

 name. It is known that some persons from time to time suffer from 

 a craze for a change — an improvement — in the u^sual orthography of 

 the poet's name. As was to be expected, Mr. Collier practically 

 pronounces against them. "As to the spelling of the name of 

 Shakespeare," he says in the MS. from which I copy, " I have never 

 considered it a matter of any importance ; but I have never put it on 

 })aper, either in print or in manuscript, but in this form — Shake- 

 speare. He seems to have spelt it in various ways, and nobody in 

 his lifetime cared much how any name was spelt, as long as it sounded 

 much in the same way. I have seen it, of old, as Shaksper, Shaxper, 

 Shackspere, Shaxespere, Shaxspeare and Shackspeere, and in other 

 fancifulmodes, for there was then no uniformity or rule. I am so busy 

 just now with my edition of his Plays, of which twenty-four are in 

 type (only 50 copies 4to to subscribers), that I really have not time 

 to enter more at lai'ge into the subject. I care much more about the 

 accuracy of a single word of his text, however small, than about the 

 mere orthography of his name." In 1842-44, Mr. Collier published 

 an edition of Shakspeare in eight volumes 8vo; and in 1848, a work 

 entitled " Shakespeare's Libi-ary," being a collection of the ancient 

 romances,, novels, legends, poems, and histories used by Shakspeare 

 as the foundation of his dramas, printed in full. His "History of 

 English Dramatic Poetry," in three volumes 8vo, published in 1831, is 

 another standard work. 



I augment the general European or Continental group (1) by a 

 volume from the library of Ferdinand Philip, Duke of Orleans, eldest 

 son of Louis Philippe, King of the French. It is an English work, 

 entitled "A Dissertation on Parties, in several letters addressed to 

 Caleb D'Anvers, Esq., and dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole; the 



