22 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



copies are known, the Museum has acquired Nicholas Breton's 

 "Merrie dialogue betwixt the Taker and Mistaker," 1603; 

 " The Whipper of the Satyre his penance in a white sheete," 

 1601, attributed to Marston, the dramatic poet ; Greene's 

 " Arbasto," first edition, 1584; and an " Epicedion on Lady 

 Helen Branch," 1594, subscribed W. Har., and remarkable 

 for containing an allusion to Shakespeare's " Lucrece." Of 

 Guilpin's " Skialetheia," 1598, three other copies are known. 



Apart from this extraordinary acquisition, the department 

 of early English literature has received some very valuable 

 accessions during the past year. Two books are absolutely 

 unique : (1) John Heywood's " Two hundred Epigrammes 

 upon two hundred proverbes, with a thyrde hundred newly 

 added," London, 1555 ; a hitherto unknown edition, proving 

 that Heywood's Epigrams were published apart from his 

 Proverbs, and apparently more than once : (2) A " Manumis- 

 sion to a Manuduction," Leyden, 1615, by John Robinson, 

 the chief promoter of the colonisation of Massachusetts by 

 the Pilgrim Fathers. This tract has not hitherto been in- 

 cluded in Robinson's collected works, as no copy could be 

 met with. Scarcely less interesting are Bishop Fisher's 

 Sermon on Quinquagesima Sunday, 1525, directed against 

 the Reformers ; and one of the two original editions, whether 

 the first or the second is uncertain, of Raleigh's " Discovery 

 of Guiana," 1594, To these maybe added: Kennedy, "Theolo- 

 gical Epitome or Divine Compend," Edinburgh, 1629 ; 

 Mynshull, " Essay and Character of a Prison and Prisoners," 

 1613 ; Boemus, " Omnium gentium mores, leges," etc., trans- 

 lated by Edward Aston, 1611 ; " The Hollanders Declaration 

 of the affairs of the East Indies," Amsterdam, 1622 ; and of 

 a later period, a spurious continuation of the " Pilgrim's 

 Progress " by J. Macintyre, 1682 ; Fuller's " Sermon of 

 Contentment," 1650, exceedingly rare ; and " Mr. Baxter 

 Baptised in Bloud," 1675, a fiction apparently circulated to 

 excite animosity against the Baptists. 



In the scarce English literature of the nineteenth century, 

 the most remarkable acquisitions have been : the first edition 

 of Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus," issued privately in 1834, 

 immediately after its appearance in Fraser's Magazine ; 

 Dickens's address at the Birmingham Polytechnic Institute, 

 1844 ; and three very rare productions of R. L. Stevenson ; 

 his first printed work, " The Pentland Rising," Edinburgh, 

 1866; the Edinburgh Magazine, 1871, with his contributions; 

 and the original edition, printed at Sydney, of his tract on 

 Father Damien. 



The chief acquisition in Bibles is a very important one, 

 being a splendid copy of the rare fourth German Bible, 

 printed by Johann Sensenschmidt and Andreas Frisner at 

 Nuremberg, about 1475. This is one of the three rarest 

 editions of the sixteen pre-Lutheran German Bibles, and is of 



more 



