To celebrate His praises in their songs,
To whom all honour and all praise belongs."
How has this fond anticipation been fulfilled? There are not known (says my authority) to be more than three or four copies in existence of this indestructible work; and the price in gold which a solitary specimen can command, is no evidence of anything but its market value. Had its poetic worth been proportionate, its currency might have been as common as that of Milton's masterpiece, and its trade price as low as Paternoster Row could afford a cheap edition of the Pilgrim's Progress.
J. M. G.
Hallamshire.
P.S.—Lowndes says:
"Few books of a cotemporary date can more readily be procured than Wither's first Remembrancer in 1628; few, it is believed, can be more difficult of attainment than his second Remembrancer, licensed in 1640, of which latter Dalrymple observes, 'there are some things interspersed in it, nowhere, perhaps, to be surpassed.'"—Bibliographer's Manual, p. 1971.
FIRST PANORAMA.
(Vol. iv., p. 54.)
I did not speak of my own recollection of Girtin's panorama; my memory cannot reach so far back. It was my father who does perfectly remember Girtin's semicircular panorama. I think the mistake must be with H. T. E. Some years back a large collection of Girtin's drawings and sketches were sold at Pimlico; my father went to see them, and was delighted to find among them some of the original sketches for this panorama, which he immediately recognised and bought. He afterwards showed them to Girtin's son, now living in practice as a surgeon at Islington (I believe), who identified them as his father's work, and with whom I went to see the painting, when not many years back it was found in a carpenter's loft. Girtin certainly was a painter principally in water colour, and one who, with the present J. M. W. Turner, contributed much to the advancement of that branch of art; but I do not see how that is a reason why he did not paint a panorama. I should think it not unlikely that two semicircular panoramas of the same subject were painted; and, therefore, with all deference, believe that the mistake is with H. T. E. Girtin's son, if applied to, could, and I am sure would, give any information he possessed readily.