r Works especially, but
the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame
Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets,
carried away by Custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and
constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse
then else they would have exprest them."

We give the orthography precisely as Milton gave it in this his first
edition.

There is a Table of Errata prefixed to this old copy, in which the
reader is told,

"for hun_dreds_ read hun_derds_.
for _we_ read _wee_."

Master Simmons's proof-reader was no adept in his art, if one may judge
from the countless errors which he allowed to creep into this immortal
poem when it first appeared in print. One can imagine the identical copy
now before us being handed over the counter in Duck Lane to some eager
scholar on the look-out for something new, and handed back again to Mr.
Thomson as too dull a looking poem for his perusal. Mr. Edmund Waller
entertained that idea of it, at any rate.

* * * * *

One of the sturdiest little books in my friend's library is a thick-set,
stumpy old copy of Richard Baxter's "Holy Commonwealth," written in
1659, and, as the title-page informs us, "at the invitation of James
Harrington Esquire,"--as one would take a glass of Canary,--by
_invitation!_ There is a preface addressed "To all those in the Army or
elsewhere, that have caused our many and great Eclipses since 1646." The
worms have made dagger-holes through and through the "inspired leaves"
of this fat little volume, till much strong thinking is now very
perforated printing. On the flyleaf is written, in a rough, straggling
hand,

"WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,

"Rydal Mount."

The poet seems to have read the old book pretty closely, for there are
evident marks of his liking throughout its pages.

* * * * *

Connected with the Bard of the Lakes is another work in my friend's
library, which I always handle with a tender interest. It is a copy of
Wordsworth's Poetical Works, printed in 1815, with all the alterations
afterwards made in the pieces copied in by the poet from the edition
published in 1827. Some of the changes are marked improvements, and
nearly all make the meaning clearer. Now and then a prosaic phrase gives
place to a more poetical expression. The well-known lines,

"Of Him who walked in glory and in joy,