Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay Page A

43-44, 2 vols in 1, 8vo,
old boards, calf back (no index)
, 10s [G.16]
    Sherborne
, 1804
    Late Rebellion in Ireland (continued), Origin of April Fool’sday, Trial for Bigamy, Ceylon, St. Domingo, etc.
And below the wrapper:
    be another habitable World in the Moon, with a Discourse concerning the possibility of a Passage thither. Unto which is added a Discourse concerning a new Planet, tending to prove that ’tis probable our Earth is one of the Planets, 8vo,
fourth edition, old calf, binding stained and wormed
, 7s 6d 1684
    1083. Zoology. — Moufet (Thomas). Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum. Fol. First Edition.
Old Calf, badly broken, titlepage missing, £
1 1Os 1634
    1084 ––– The Silkewormes, and their flies: lively described in verse, by T. M. a Countrie Farmer. 4to. First Edition,
rebound in calf. Pages stained, £
1 5s 1599
    My dear Bishop Wilkins and my dear Dr. Moufet, looking up at me from parallel columns. It is apparent that I cannot waste-paper them without a look; I have the greatest regard for them both, the insectophile French physician, and the mathematical, ingenious, speculative Bishop of Chester, who so happilypursued his mechanical, astronomical and philosophical researches throughout wars and tumults, and got so prosperously, so discreetly, through the Civil War, Commonwealth, Protectorate, and Restoration, ending a Bishop and a member of the Royal Society; who, after the Restoration, “stood up for the Church of England, but dislik’d Vehemence in little and unnecessary Things, and freely censur’d it as Fanaticism on both sides”; for, in truth, his mind was up among the moon and planets, or speculating on how men might best fly, or thinking out levers, screws, wheels, pulleys and wedges. This book here will be, of course,
The Discovery of a New World in the Moon
.
    The wrapper is slit and cast off. One may as well mark the
New World in the Moon;
no harm can come of marking it. And, now that the catalogue is opened, it would be foolish not to run an eye over the rest of it, just to see what is here. There may be another Bishop Wilkins.
    There
is
another Bishop Wilkins—
Mathematicall Magick
, 1680 edition. How fortunate that I opened this catalogue, for I have been wanting a cheap
Mathematicall Magick
for months. And here is a modern reprint of John Maplet’s
Greene Forest
. As I know of no other edition since the sixteenth century, I may as well mark it, though I remember its introduction to be foolish and sentimental, and of the “quaint old Maplet” type. Better is Burnet’s
Sacred Theory of the Earth
, Third Edition, review’d by the Author, broken back and damaged boards, 1697. And William Shipway’s
Campanalogia; or, Universal Instruction in the Art of Ringing, in Three Parts: to which is prefixed an Account of the Origin of Bells in Churches, with the Principal Peals in England
, cr. 8vo, orig. boards, nice copy, uncut, 1816. Not that I need it: quite definitely, I do not need it at all; still, I will put a tick against it, in case I wish to refer to its title again.
    1104. Yonge (C.M.)
Der Erbe von Redcliffe, aus dem Englischen
… Vol. I only, Author’s Own Copy, 5
s
., Leipzig, 1856. Dear Heir of Redcliffe: I should like to see how your flashing eye and curling upper lip would go in German; but I will not; it would be desecration;
Der Erbe
shall have no tick.
    Nor shall any of these modern first editions. Why does anyone prefer a first edition of a modern book to a later one? I am told that this is one of the diseases that one cannot hope to understand unless one suffers from it. It is, I presume, called protophilism, or even protomania. Sufferers from it keep, perhaps, the first white stone they see when out walking, or the newspapers for the first day of each month, or the top button off each of their coats, or the first stamp out of each stamp-book, or the programmes of the first nights of plays, or