24 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



books, Cotton Mather's " Briefe Discourse," 1691, and Chief 

 Justice Sewall's " Phsenomena quaedam Apocalyptica," 1693; 

 also a curious contemporary ballad on the Battle of Dettingen. 

 Among rare modern books, the most remarkable are R. L. 

 Stevenson's second production, " The Charity Bazaar," 

 privately printed at Edinburgh, and his " Not I," and 

 *' Moral Emblems," printed at his private press at Davos, 

 1881. 



The additions of curiosities include three of especial 

 interest : 1. An original wooden block, from which a block 

 book, the " Speculum Humanse Salvationis," was printed 

 about 1480. 2. A proclamation by Queen Mary, 1st September 

 1553, complaining of the impoverishment of the Crown by the 

 bad government of the Duke of Northumberland ; but, never- 

 theless, remitting the subsidy granted by the late Parliament. 

 No otherproclamation by Queen Mary is known to exist in print, 

 except those in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries. 

 S A copy of the " Solemne League and Covenant," ordered 

 by the English Parliament, on 29th January 1644, to be fairly 

 printed in a fair letter, and hung up in every church in the 

 Jcingdom. As the royal authority is recognised in the title, 

 it became unserviceable upon the abolition of monarchy, and 

 its speedy disappearance accounts for its extreme rarity. 

 Among the names of members appended are those of 

 Cromwell, Selden, Pym, the Vanes, and other distinguished 

 men of the period. Several important purchases have been 

 made of books enriched with MS. notes, especially La 

 Fontaine's copy of his romance, " Les Amours de Psyche et 

 de Cupidon," with numerous alterations in his own hand- 

 writing for an intended new edition, which were never made 

 in print, and exist only in this copy ; one of the only six 

 copies printed of a memoir drawn up by Voltaire during his 

 ■litigation with the Cure of Moens, dated Ferney, 25th May 

 1761, signed by him and with additions in his handwriting ; 

 Wilkes's copy of the Letters of Junius, copiously underlined 

 by him ; Allan Cunningham's edition of Burns's Poems, 

 with copious MS. notes, mostly unpublished. With these 

 ^may be mentioned an unique proof copy of a clandestine 

 reprint by M. Poulet-Malassis of three juvenile poems by 

 Victor Hugo, entitled by the editor " Satires Jacobites," 

 which were stopped at press ; also numerous proof sheets of 

 the Edinburgh collected edition of De Quincey's works, with 

 copious corrections by him ; and several numbers of " The 

 Westmoreland Gazette," the newspaper he conducted at 

 Kendal between 1816 and 1820. 



Among interesting collections which have been purchased 

 may be mentioned chap-books in French, Italian, Portuguese, 

 Catalan, Proven9ab and Bohemian, an important series of 

 tracts relating to the history of Geneva ; and a large col- 

 lection of editions of the works of Gay. 



Donations. — 



