From West Point near; with fiery chant Or steadfast when disasters pierce

A name revered of hardihood
In danger, but in peace return
To civic toil they choose, and learn
From Roman Cincinnatus grand
To save and serve a grateful land.
Their chosen president is one
Like him of old, e'en Washington.

XIII.

Now Newburgh, shorn of olden arms,
Adorns herself with growing charms,
And Hasbrouck's house as sacred keeps.
There Uzal Knapp, last guardsman,
sleeps

In honor near the staff where Scott
Flung to the breeze the flag, whose spot
Of slavery has been erased.

A hundred years increasing graced
The land with power, but unforgot
The highland memories slumber not.
The solid tower of victory
Commemorates the chivalry,
And prose and verse the pageantry
That celebration kept of days'
Past excellence that passes praise.

And in that year a social bond
Was knit of recollection fond
And patriotic by the sons
Of Revolution Washingtons.

XIV.

With remnants of the famous host
The hero leads to southern coast
And city by the sea the way
Victorious, as Britain's day

Of power wanes, and darkling sets;
And in New York his farewell wets
The eyes of all with painful tears.
Before the congress he appears
To lay his sword, and then retires
At home to rest, until desires
Of union and of government
Recall the chief to represent
The nation in the chair of state.
Secure foundations of the great
And glorious future he had laid
When Time's fast flight but a decade
Of brief years had encircling sped,
And taken from the land its head.
A halo rests round his person,
And freedom knows one Washington.

Edward for Rank

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November 23, 1889.

THE LIBRARY OF A PHILADELPHIA ANTIQUARIAN

SOME OF ITS HISTORIC TREASURES

This is a bustling, iconoclastic, practical age. Every department of life is becoming intensely secularized, and antiquarians have little favor shown them. Still, here and there, are some quiet nooks where they can breathe their native air and feel thoroughly at home. A certain private library in Philadelphia is such a retreat, although but little known, as its owner avoids publicity, and in this sketch commands the writer to maintain for him his incognito. Its formation has been the labor of years, involving much research and exacting study, such as collectors only can understand and appreciate.

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Americana" is its specialty, but the collection is by no means limited to this branch of literature and learning; it embraces other works of great historic value. A glance along its shelves reveals to the visitor the fact that modern books in gaudy covers are notably absent, while old time-stained and original bindings are seen on every side. The earliest printed book we find is a copy of The Epistles of Phalaris, quarto, vellum, dated 1475, in excellent preservation, and almost as fresh as when first produced, seventeen years before the discovery of America by Columbus. The next is a beautiful copy of The Soliloquy of a General and Penitent Sinner, in Seven Penitential Psalms, printed at Nuremberg, 1479, in primer gothic type, with rubricated capitals, the color of the latter as bright as when issued; it is the product of the celebrated mediæval printer, Creuszner, who has received unbounded praise from all collectors. The execution of this volume is absolutely perfect, not a flaw to be found in its typography.

Another antique work of marvelous interest is a small quarto vellum of Homer's Iliad in the Italian language, printed in Padua in 1564. The earliest book in English is "A dyaloge of Syr Thomas More Knyghte: one of the counsayll of oure souerayne lorde the Kyng and chancellour of hys duchy of Lancaster. Wherin be treatyd dyuers maters as of the Veneration and worshyp of ymagys and relyques praying to sayntys and goyng o pylgrymage. Wyth many othere thyngys touchyng the pestylent sect of Luther and Tyndale by the tone by gone in Saxony, and by the tother laboryd to be brought into England." This is the first edition, small

folio, black letter," Emprynted by Johannes Rastell at London at the sygne of the mermayd at Powlys gate 1529." Like many early printed books, the printer's name, device, and date appear on the last page of the volume. Johannes Rastell was brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More. This is an extremely rare volume, and lacks only one page of the preface. It is understood that the copy in the British Museum is far inferior to this. A recent writer describes it as a "work of remarkable skill, and has always been considered by Roman Catholics to be More's greatest achievement." Strange that such a book should be found in Philadelphia, yet there it was purchased.

Other gems in the collection are a quarto black letter of great rarity: The poore man's Garden, wherein are flowers of the Scriptures, and Doctours, very necessary and profitable, by John Northbrook, 1571, London: the title is in beautiful filigree border, seldom seen. Its typographical execution is excellent; and The Felicitie of Man, or his Summum Bonum, by Sir Richard Barckley, Knight, London, 1598: this is the rare first edition of a book the sentiments of which have always been admired, and repeatedly quoted. Two relics of the Stuarts keep these volumes company, first: The New Borne Christian, or a lively Patterne and Perfect Representation of the Saint Militant and Child of God, by Nicholas Hunt, London, 1631; a small quarto of four hundred pages. This book belonged to the unfortunate Charles I., and the royal arms on both the covers are stamped in gold. The inscription in a quaint hand reads, "A friendly guifte of the author residinge At Paules' wharfe in Bell Yeard, St. Peter's parish." It is in the original costly binding save the clasps, which are missing. The second relic is The Sage Senator, Delineated, by I. G., Gent, London, 1660,” a small unpretending volume, once the property of Charles II., bearing the stamp on the covers, C. R., surmounted with a crown. Whether the royal owners ever perused these volumes is an open question; certainly they would have been better and wiser had they done so, and heeded the instructions therein given.

We find here a neat copy of a well-known work, Bishop Burnet's Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale, London, 1682. On the fly leaf is written, John Penn His Book. Pray send it home when read. Its value is enhanced, because of having been the property of William Penn, and it bears the Penn arms, inscribed, William Penn, Esq., Proprietor of Pennsylvania, 1703. The famous Plantin Press is fitly represented in a superbly printed copy of Ovid, bearing the imprint of "Christophori Plantini, Antwerp, 1583," in excellent preservation, and perfect throughout. An elaborate article on this renowned printing establishment appeared in Harper's

Monthly for August, 1890. From Scotland is a finely printed edition of Gray's Poems, from the press of Robert and Andrew Foulis, Glasgow, 1768. It is bound in contemporary green calf, and delicately tooled, a beautiful specimen of the binder's art. The type is large-especially made for this work. It was this Foulis press that printed the "immaculate Horace," the sheets of which were hung up in Glasgow University, and a reward of £20 offered to any one who should discover a single error. This volume is more interesting, by the enclosure inside the cover of a veritable twig from that "yew tree," beneath whose shade "heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap," immortalized in Gray's Elegy.

A Philosophic Treatise of the original and Production of Things, Writ in America in a Time of Solitudes, by R. Franck, London, 1687, is the title of an unpretending little book. The author was a captain in the parliamentary army, a mystic, and deeply tinged with Jacob Behmen's tenets. Whereabouts in America this enthusiast settled is not known, but it is supposed in Pennsylvania. It is an ingenious, weird, metaphysical production, and amply repays perusal. It is excessively rare, and thus far but one other copy is known to exist in America—in possession of the Long Island Historical Society. The Baviad and Mæviad, by Gifford, interesting as the American edition, printed in Philadelphia for William Cobbett, 1799, bears the following inscription in Cobbett's own writing: "To William Gifford Esq. This copy of his admired poem is most respectfully presented by his obedient servant, William Cobbett, the Publisher." It contains also the autograph of William Gifford. Another valuable and interesting work is the original, unexpurgated edition of William Penn's Sandy Foundation Shaken, London, 1668, for the heretical doctrines of which the bishop of London threw the unlucky author in jail. Its sentiments are unmistakable. It is significant that the Orthodox Friends condemn this treatise, and say little about it as possible, while the Hicksites, on the contrary, indorse and still circulate it. It has passed through several editions, modified to avoid offense. It is certainly far from evangelical and would not receive the sanction of our leading religious bodies. Penn was only twenty-four when he wrote it, young in years as well as theology, and like many authors of that era too much inclined to mysticism and ambiguity.

A copy of Baskerville's Royal Folio Bible, 1763, is one of the finest specimens of printing ever issued from the English press. The binding in this instance, however, is its chief attraction. It is doubtful if there is such another copy in America, in red morocco, gilt, elaborately tooled. No such work appears in these days; in the first place, it would be diffi