“Your very faithful

“and obt.  Servant

“WALTER SCOTT.”

This letter is worthy to be printed, and the readers of the “Atlantic Monthly” now see it for the first time, I believe, set in type.

* * * * *

Old Bernard Lintott, at the Cross-Keys in Fleet Street, brought out in 1714 “The Rape of the Lock, an Heroi-Comical Poem, in Five Cantos, written by Mr. Pope.”  He printed certain words in the title-page in red, and other certain words in black ink.  His own name and Mr. Pope’s he chose to exhibit in sanguinary tint.  A copy of this edition, very much thumbed and wanting half a dozen leaves, fell into the hands of Charles Lamb more than a hundred years after it was published.  Charles bore it home, and set to work to supply, in his small neat hand, from another edition, what was missing from the text in his stall-bought copy.  As he paid only sixpence for his prize, he could well afford the time it took him to write in on blank leaves, which he inserted, the lines from

  “Thus far both armies to Belinda yield,”

onward to the couplet,

  “And thrice they twitch’d the Diamond in her Ear,
  Thrice she look’d back, and thrice the Foe drew near.”

Besides this autographic addition, enhancing forever the value of this old copy of Pope’s immortal poem, I find the following little note, in Lamb’s clerkly chirography, addressed to

“Mr. Wainright, on Thursday.

“Dear Sir,

“The Wits (as Clare calls us) assemble at my cell (20 Russell Street, Cov.  Gar.) this evening at 1/4 before 7.  Cold meat at 9.  Puns at——­a little after.  Mr. Cary wants to see you, to scold you.  I hope you will not fail.

“Yours &c. &c. &c.

“C.  LAMB.”

There are two books in my friend’s library which once belonged to the author of the “Elegy in a Country Churchyard.”  One of them is “A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East Indies:  printed for T. Warner at the Black Boy, and F. Batley at the Dove, in 1718.”  It has the name of T. Gray, written by himself, in the middle of the title-page, as was his custom always.  Before Gray owned this book, it belonged to Mr. Antrobus, his uncle, who wrote many original notes in it.  The volume has also this manuscript memorandum on one of the fly-leaves, signed by a well-known naturalist, now living in England:—­

“August 28, 1851.

“This book has Gray’s autograph on the title page, written in his usual neat hand.  It has twice been my fate to witness the sale of Gray’s most interesting collection of manuscripts and books, and at the last sale I purchased this volume.  I present it to ——­ as a little token of affectionate regard by her old friend, now in his 85th year.”

Who will not be willing to admit the great good-luck of my friend in having such a donor for an acquaintance?