“The History of the Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Translated from the Spanish, by Motteux. A new Edition with Copious Notes; and an Essay on the Life and Writings of Cervantes [by J. G. Lockhart]. In Five Volumes. Vol. I. Edinburgh: Printed for Hurst, Robinson and Co., London; and Archibald Constable and Co., Edinburgh. 1822.”
“The Works of John Home, Esq. Now first Collected. To which is prefixed an Account of his Writings. By Henry Mackenzie, F.R.S.E., &c. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co., Edinburgh; and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., London. 1822.”
John Home (1722-1808) was a clergyman in the Kirk of Scotland, who wrote several plays. His most popular play was “Douglas,” a Scottish romantic drama, in which maternal affection is depicted under novel and striking circumstances—the accidental discovery of a lost child; and Henry Mackenzie, “the Man of Feeling,” here gives his opinion that the chief scene, in which the preservation and the existence of the lost Douglas is discovered, has no equal in modern and scarcely a superior in ancient drama. The play was first performed at Edinburgh on December 14, 1756, and met with instant and brilliant success, but so violent a storm was raised by the fact of a Presbyterian minister so violating the rules of clerical propriety as to write a play, that the author had to succumb to the Presbytery and resign his ministry. It is in “Douglas” that the well-known passage occurs: “My name is Norval: on the Grampian hills my father feeds his flock,” &c.
“A Topographical and Historical Account of the Town of Kelso, and of the Town and Castle of Roxburgh. With a succinct detail of the occurrences in the History of Scotland connected with these celebrated places. And an Appendix, containing various official documents, &c. By James Haig. Edinburgh: Printed for John Fairbairn, Waterloo Place; and James Duncan, London. 1825. Edinburgh: Printed by James Ballantyne and Co.”
Demy 8vo, and illustrated with several fine steel engravings.
“The Poems of William Dunbar. Now first Collected. With Notes and a Memoir of his Life. By David Laing. Volume First. Edinburgh: MDCCCXXXIV. Printed for Laing and Forbes, Princes Street, Edinburgh, and William Pickering, London.”
This old Scottish poet was born in East Lothian, and after his education at the University of St. Andrews became a Franciscan friar and travelled through France, England, and Scotland as a mendicant preacher. Little was known of his poems till the beginning of the eighteenth century, though several of them had been issued as tracts by the first Scottish printers, Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar, in 1508. Sir Walter Scott said: “Dunbar was unrivalled by any poet that Scotland has yet produced; he excelled in moral and humorous verse, and was peculiarly happy in using allegory in the advocacy of truth.”