LITERATURE. 
817 
Johnes's Froiftart, 4 vols. (only 26 printed) 
—-Monftrelet, 4 vols. (only 26 printed) 
Daniel’s Oriental Scenery, 6 feries, 200 guineas 
Lord Valentia’s Travels, 3 vols. largeft paper, 
50 guineas (only 50 of fuch printed) 
Salt’s Views, 26 guineas - 
Bloomfield’s Norfolk, 11 vols. 4to. 22 guineas 
(only 120 copies printed ; 2 copies 
only printed on large paper, worth 100 
guineas each) .... 
Britifh Gallery of Engravings, large paper 
Coftumes of the World, 7 vols. 
Dryden’s Works, 18 vols. ... 
Sir i<. Hoare’s Ancient Wiltihire (only 60 
printed) - ... 
Giraldus, 2 vols. 4to. - - 
Perry’s Conchology ... 
Hodges’s India .... 
Philofophical Tranfaftions abridged, 18 vols. 
(only 150 printed) ... 
Boke of St. Alban’s (only 150 printed) 
Shaw’s Staffordihire, folio ... 
Dilletanti Specimens, folio (only 350 printed) 
/. 5 . 
335 
335 10 
2310 o 
d. 
o 
o 
o 
577 10 o 
300 6 o 
254 s 
1065 13 
53 a ^ 
138 12 
207 18 
127 1 
184 16 
369 o 
605 o 
55 o 
1 10 o 
165 o 
11 Copies of 26 Works—^"8764 16 o 
Numerous lifts might be added to thefe. We will oniy 
mention a few ftriking individual cafes. 
A new edition of Wood’s Athenae Oxonienfes is pre¬ 
paring, with additions. The price of each copy of this, 
on the belt paper, will be 72 guineas. If the editor be 
compelled to give away 11 copies of this work, it will be 
a lots to him of 830I. 
A new edition of Dugdale’s Monafticon is preparing, 
with additions. The fubfcription-price of this, on the 
belt paper, is 130 guineas for each fet. This will be a 
very expenfive work to the reverend gentleman who has 
undertaken it, from the number of plates which it will 
contain. If he (hould be compelled to give 11 copies of 
this, it will be a lofs to him of 1500I. 
The Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin is well known to be pub- 
lifhing a new edition of Ames’s Typography, with many 
valuable additions, the fruit of his aftive and unwearied 
refearches. This work will be completed in fix volumes, 
of which the price is fix guineas each volume for the belt 
paper. The lofs to him, if he mull give 11 copies, will 
be above 400I. Mr. Dibdin will lofe 207I. 18s. on the Bi¬ 
bliotheca Spenceriana, which he is preparing, if he has to 
deliver eleven copies of it on the bell paper. 
Eleven copies of Mr. Nichols’s Hillory of Leicefterlhire 
would be to him a lofs of 288I. 15s. Eleven copies of 
his Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 10 volumes 
quarto, (of which in the whole only 250 copies were 
printed,) 231I. Eleven copies of his Literary Anecdotes 
of the Eighteenth Century, fix very large oftavo volumes, 
the labour of thirty years, 80I. 17s. The fame gentleman 
has alfo undertaken to complete the Hillory of Dorfetfliire ; 
11 copies of which are 184I. 16s. An extraft from his 
own letter will Ihow that this would be a lofs, without 
any balance of profit foever. “ Of the Hillory of Dorfet- 
fhire, the greater part of vols. i. and ii. was deltroyed by 
fire ; but, that the work might not remain wholly incom¬ 
plete, the author, the proprietor, and the editor, being 
all dead, I volunteered my fervices as editor of vols. iii. 
and iv. at a price that left me no chance of a return of 
any profit whatever, and not even with a certainty of being 
repaid my prime cod. In faff, the price which the whole 
number printed would produce, will barely cover the ex- 
penfe of paper, printing, and copper-plates ; and from 
this, eleven copieson large paper would fubtraft 184I. 16s.” 
Several works are now in the prefs that will coll from 
50 to 70 guineas each ; of which the value of eleven copies 
will be from 500I. to 700I. And we may add two others, 
of a ftill higher price : Eleven copies of Dr. Rees’s Cy¬ 
clopaedia, as far as it has proceeded, namely, to the 24th 
VOL. XII. No. 874. 
volume, will coll 950I. Ss. and, when completed to the 
propofed 36 volumes, 1425I. 6s.—Eleven copies of the 
Encyclopaedia Londinenfis, to the end of the 12th volume, 
which it has nearly reached, will coll 748I. and, (hould it 
extend to 24 volumes, eleven complete fets of the fine- 
paper edition. coloured, will cod' 1496I. 
Thefe individual cafes (and a great number of others 
precifely fimilar at this moment exift, and might be men¬ 
tioned) are not the cafes of gentlemen with large fortunes 
publilhing books. Indeed, inftances are rare of gentle¬ 
men of fortune rifking any part of that in expenfive pub¬ 
lications. Thefe, and fuch like, are the cafes of public- 
fpirited authors, who, with a laudable zeal for literature, 
and an honourable defire of an honourable remuneration 
from the public for their labours, undertake thefe arduous, 
troublefome, and expenfive, works. 
Thus (lands the cafe as to large-paper copies; and it 
is probable that every one will feel that the delivery of 
thefe ought to ceafe. We will now (late the cafe on the 
fuppofition that eleven common-paper copies were only re¬ 
quired. One mod refpeftable publiftier took the trouble 
to make an accurate calculation of the fum to which the 
delivery of eleven copies, on common paper, of all the 
books he had publilhed for the lad three years, would have 
amounted ; and he found that the amount would have 
been 143 61 . 9s. 3d. Another highly-refpeftable publiftier 
has dated, that, on the average of his publications for 
the lalt ten or twelve years, the eleven copies would have 
been to him a taxation of above 300I. a-year, excluiive of 
works in which he was but a partner. If there had been 
time to have collefted from every publiftier the amount of 
the facrifice which he would have made by the delivery of 
eleven copies of all books publilhed by him, the aggre¬ 
gate of the whole would have furprifed the reader. But 
from thefe two inllances the total amount of eleven copies 
of every work, even on common paper, that is publiftied 
in Great Britain and Ireland, may be conjeftured ; and it 
may be fairly alked, if a taxation fo heavy as this ought 
to be impofed on the authors and owners of literary pro¬ 
perty ? 
A few inftances will (how how heavy the burthen would 
be even on common-paper copies. The delivery of elevem 
copies of the following fifteen works, on common paper, 
would have coll the publifhers 2699I. 8s. 
Johnfon’s Poets, 21 vols. 8vo. by Chalmers 
Britifh Eflayifts, 45 vols. i8mo. 
-Novelills, 50 vols. i8mo. 
Bowles’s Pope’s Works, 10 vols. 8vo. 
Wakefield’s Pope's Homer, 9 vols. 8vo. - 
Dryden’s Works, by Scott, 18 vols. 8vo. 
Swift’s Works, by Nichols, 19 vols. 8vo. 
Camden’s Britannia, 4 vols. folio 
Miller’s Gardeners’ Dictionary, 2 vols. folio 
Buffon’s Natural Hiftory, 20 vols. 8vo. 
Aikin’s Biography, 10 vols. 4to. 
Inchbald’s Theatre, Farces, and Modern 
Theatre, 42 vols. i8ma. 
Somers’s 7 'rafts, 10 vols. 4to. 
Harleian Mifcellany, 10 vols. 4to. 
State Trials, 21 vols. royal Svo. 
£■ 
$. 
d. 
*75 
O 
O 
11 5 
IO 
O 
138 
12 
0 
57 
1 5 
O 
44 
11 
0 
103 
19 
O 
99 
O 
Of 
184 
l6 
CP 
l6l 
*4 
0 
132 
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0 
*73 
5 
0 
221 
l6 
6 
346 
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381 
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363 
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1699 
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To thefe we may add, as before, Rees’s Cyclopaedia, 24 
vols. eleven copies, 52SI. ditto, when complete, 792I. 
Encyclopaedia Londinenfis, 12 vols. eleven copies of the 
cheapeft of the four editions of which that work confifts 
will coil 344I. 4s. 2d. and, when complete, 6881 . 8s. 4d. 
Thole who have attended to the nature of the publica¬ 
tions that perpetually iffue from the Btitifti prefs, will 
know that this lift might be made very extenfive. So that 
it is clear that to emancipate literature from the delivery 
only of the bed-paper copies will not be a fufficierit re¬ 
lief. Unlefs parliament alio extend the relief to the com, 
c ,Y Kioa- 
