ost unreadable page. Throughout the
first half of the eighteenth century the books printed in New England
compared favorably with the ones imported from England at that date, and
in the special case of the "Poetical Oblation"--a fine quarto, offered
by Harvard College to George III. on his accession to the throne, the
typography is exquisite. For the early binding but one word can be
said--that of praise. All these old books had Charles Lamb's desideratum
of a volume, were "strong backed and neat bound." Well dressed was the
morocco, the leather, the vellum, parchment, or basil, firmly was it
glued in place, well-sewed were the leaves--loudly can we sing the
goodness and true worth of colonial bookbinding.

In many New England libraries and collections may be seen specimens of
colonial printing and binding; the library of the American Antiquarian
Society is particularly rich in such ancient treasures. Some of the
books from Cotton Mather's library may there be found, that library
which Dunton called the glory of New England, and which he said was the
largest privately owned collection of books that he had ever seen; but
many of them were burned in the sacking of Boston by the British. It
consisted of over seven thousand printed volumes and many manuscripts,
and its estimated value was L8,000. The majority of these volumes was
naturally upon divinity.

We can also form an idea of a New England library at a somewhat earlier
date, for the list of books in Elder Brewster's library has been
preserved. They numbered four hundred. Of these books, sixty-two were in
Latin and three hundred in English. There were forty-eight folios and
one hundred and twenty-one octavos. This was quite a bulky and heavy
library for transportation to and through that new country. All were not
imported at one time, as the succession of dates shows. Brewster
purchased from time to time the best books brought out in England on
subjects which interested him, until it was really a rich exegetical
collection, and may possibly have been used as a circulating one. Nearly
all the number were religious, theological, or historical books;
fourteen were in rhyme. Among the poems were "A Turncoat of the Times,"
Spenser's "Prosopopeia," "The Scyrge of Drunkenness," a "Description of
a Good Wife," the ballad of "The Maunding Soldier," and Wither's works.
One might have been a tragedy, "Messalina," but there were no other
dramatic works.

Other benefactors of b