A NEW CAXTON. THE ROXBURGHE SALE. Mr. URBAN, Kensington, July 18. Ta moment when the attention

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of a great portion of your cu rious readers may be turned to a consideration of the rapidly-increasing value of rare books printed in the fif teenth century, you will not, probably, object to the insertion of an account of a NEWLY-DISCOVERED CAXTON.

A few days ago I received a long letter from Mons. Van-Praet, one of the principal librarians of the Imperial Library at Paris, in which that distinguished Bibliographer makes known, with an enthusiasm which would do credit to our most zealous book-collectors, the discovery of the ROMANCE OF JASON, printed in the French language, with types precisely similar to those with which the French and English RECUEIL DR3 HISTOIRES DE TROYE are executed; having the same number of lines (31) in a full page. Mr. Van-Praet speaks of the copy as being a very beautiful one, in small folio, and containing 131 leaves. It commences thus:

"A gallee de mon engin flotant na pas long temps en la profondeur des mers de plusseurs anciennes histoires ainsi comme Je vouloie me, &c. &c." and terminates on the reverse of the last leaf, which has only 21 lines, with the following:

"de engin na seen touchier ne peu comprendre, &c.

Explicit."

Mr. Van Praet informs me that he found it in an antient volume, with an edition of Colard Mansion, printer at Burges in 1474, and who was probably visited by Caxton, in passing through that town in 1471.

Lord

Spencer, whose extraordinary collection of Caxtons (among other of the rarest books in the 15th century) made me anxious to give him the foregoing information as quickly as possible, supposes, and, as it strikes

me, with justice, that the French volumes of the RECUEIL and JASON, printed with types similar to those of the English Recueil and Game of Chess, were, in all probability, the workmanship of CAXTON'S MASTER. Indeed, it is evident from an inspection of his prologue to the Golden Legend of 1483 (see my first vol. page 187), that Caxton makes no mention whatever of having printed either of the French works here noticed; but commences the account of his typogra phical labours with the execution of the English Recueil and Game of Chess; the only volumes hitherto known which are printed in types similar to those of the French Recueil and this NEWLY-DISCOVERED JASON.

And here, Mr. Urban, you will naturally remark, what would this Jason have brought at the sale of the ROXBURGUE LIBRARY? It might cer tainly have trod harder upon the heels of the BoCCACCIO, than the English Recueil, of which latter the duke of Devonshire was the spirited purchaser, at the enormous sum of 10601.!! Thus brought upon the threshold of the Roxburghe Sale, I may be expected to observe something thereupon. My friends have urged, and the publick, through such friendly medium, may have been led to expect, soME ACCOUNT OF THIS SALE. But where is the necessity of a formal and elaborate notice of what is in the mouth and memory of the whole Book-World on this side of the Channel Why excite fresh exacer bation among disappointed competi tors? Why tear open wounds which promise to be in due time closed? Or rather, why give an additional impulse to false feelings and romantic calculations concerning the worth of every worthless black-letter scrap? More mischief has ensued bibliomaniacal wretchedness has resulted from this unparalleled SALE, than the healing influence of an un disturbed century may be able to

more

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ounter-balance. It has been a sort O BOOK EARTHQUAKE; exhibiting, Upon different principles, and with dissimilar effects, the tremendous conSequences of the irruption of Mount Souffrier, at St. Vincent's! As the lava at this place, incrusted whole meadows and vallies and corn-fields, so have the volcanic effects of this sale dried up the resources ( pro tempore dicamus') of many a Book-competitor. Let us, therefore, Mr. Urban, draw the curtain upon so melancholy a scene. The spirit of John Duke of Roxburghe has had more honour paid to it, than that of Romulus ever received after he had been translated to Olympus.

That many reflections, growing out of this surprising occurrence, and many curious, rare, and interesting facts connected with it, may be recorded by me in another place, and in a NEW WORK, I am by no means disposed to deny. But, for the next two years, my time is wholly occupied, and my hands are sufficiently full. I may, afterwards, presume to present myself before the publick in the shape of an entirely new work, of which the title and the embellishments will not, I trust, be the most inviting attractions. In_regard to a SUPPLEMENT TO THE BIBLIOMANIA, it is a plan of which I have no comprehension: still less do I meditate the execution of it. As far as I can learn, no serious consequences have resulted from the tender attachments of Lysander and Lisardo with Almansa and Belinda. The forms of courtship have hardly yet been entered upen, and the golden hour of wedlock is, of course, at an incalculable distance. How, therefore, can these characters be again brought forward before the publick? or have the latter the cruelty to prefer the dry notes which are thickly strewed beneath their dialogue, to the tender history of their sentimental attachment?

The BIBLIOMANIA has had a prosperous sale; and the author of it, like Cato, is satisfied;'-not with the wealth which has accrued to hit in consequence (for that has been trifling), but with the good opinion of those who have thoroughly perused it, and have been competent to pass judgment upon its comparative merits and demerits. Amidst the favourable impressions which it made,

there was not found wanting an assailant or two, who, in his attacks, discovered rather the art of quibbling than of criticism; and displayed such a coarse vein of wretched wit, as if his only object had been to shew that what he wanted in delicacy and scholarship, was abundantly supplied in vulgarity and confidence: I speak of an anonymous critic, whose felicity must consist in the concealment of his name. Open and manly warfare no generous heart can object to; but the affectation and strutting of a masked Reviewer, who strives to captivate by the embroidery of his dress, rather than by the skill with which

the character is enacted'; who makes a parade of mere school-boy scholarship, and evinces a total ignorance both of the subject and system he has undertaken to criticise-is so sad and contemptible, that, if the great mass of readers did not judge for themselves, or suffer themselves to be guided by safer instructors, there would be an end to tasle, to liberality, and to useful, although laborious research.

The effect of this Review was not so fatal to the sale of the work as it was triumphantly predicted to be. For three months, the edition has been exhausted; and it will NEVER

BE REPRINTED. It was always my wish to confine its circulation to the number of copies already printed; so that even its opponents will soon allow it the merit of being a rare book. I will only add, that its curious embellishments, as well as the quantity of biographical and bibliographical information contained in it, will always, it is hoped, secure to its author the character of an honest and diligent writer.

"O grant an honest fame, or grant

me none!"