curious collections on alchemy and allied subjects. This library is of quite exceptional character, and one which it is difficult to deal with adequately. Few are sufficiently familiar with the subject of which the largest portion in it is so notable a feature as to be perfectly at case in its treatment. But feeling that it would have been a misfortune if so remarkable a library had gone unmentioned, these pages have been written, and although the collection truly yet remains undescribed, some of its more prominent features have been roughly outlined.

CHAPTER XIV.

LIBRARY OF GEORGE GRAY, ESQ., CLERK OF THE PEACE FOR LANARKSHIRE AT GLASGOW, AND TOWN CLERK OF THE BURGH OF RUTHERGLEN.

Blairtum Park-The Library-A Rare CatechismWitchcraft-Poetry and the Drama-Scottish Poetry -The Production of Home's "Douglas" on the Edinburgh Stage-First, Second, and Third Editions of the Works of Burns-Splendid Collections of Scottish Family History and Scottish Topography-Other Works on Scotland-Proclamations, Dying Speeches, etc.-Controversy regarding the Election of Professor Leslie to the Mathematical Chair in the University of Edinburgh Chap-books- Works relating to Glasgow -Fleming v. the Magistrates of Glasgow-Boyd's "Last Battell of the Soule in Death"-Large Collection of Trials-Burke and Hare, Dr. PritchardCollection of Indictments, Informations, etc.-Fine Art-Conclusion.

MR. GRAY lives at Blairtum Park, about a mile and a half to the south of the ancient royal burgh of

Rutherglen, of which he is the Town Clerk. The house is picturesquely set upon a hill, and commands a magnificent view of the country round about. To the west and north-west lie the great capital of the West, and its suburbs of Crosshill, Pollokshields, Strathbungo, Shawlands, and Pollokshaws, a vast sea of housetops; to the north, Rutherglen, with its wide Main Street and imposing Municipal Buildings; to the east, the rising and populous village of Cambuslang, and a long stretch of the valley of the Clyde; and to the south, the Cathkin Hills, extending from the Hill of Dechmont westwards to Cathcart. Capping the summit of the height, almost directly opposite, is the dozen or so of handsome residences which form the modern suburb of Burnside, their cold grey aspect forming a striking contrast to the bright green of the richly-wooded hollow.

Blairtum was built by Mr. Gray in 1878 on the lands of High Crosshill, and is in the Scottish baronial style of architecture. The library is situated in the square tower facing the south, and is a handsome, wellappointed room, but has grown too small for Mr. Gray's requirements. Its capacity has been strained to the utmost, almost every expedient known to librarians. suffering from a want of shelf space having been resorted to, and supplementary bookcases erected in adjoining rooms to receive the overflow. The number of volumes may be set down at over five thousand. Reckoning by separate publications, the total would be much larger, as, for example, some of the volumes of chap-books contain as many as eighty different tractates, each published separately. The collection is richest in Scottish literature, although other departments of learning are well represented. For many years Mr. Gray has specially sought for works relating to Scotland, its history, its families and clans, its towns and counties, its famous trials and notable natives. Nearly five hundred topographical and historical works,

over one hundred family histories, several hundreds of articles pertaining to somewhat more than a hundred and fifty trials, a large collection of criminal indictments, informations, and similar documents, many pamphlets relating to the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, about fifteen hundred chap-books, and other works, testify to the success with which he has pursued his favourite subject.

To proceed to details. A book of much rarity is "The Assembly's Shorter Catechism in Metre," by Mr. Robert Smith, schoolmaster at Glammis, printed at Edinburgh, 1727. A second edition was issued in 1729, and some years ago the work was reprinted by an Edinburgh antiquarian bookseller from this 1729 edition, which he described as the first. Other early catechisms in the library are several printed in Glasgow, one in 1774, and one printed in Paisley, with a fine impression of the Paisley arms on the title-page. A copy of Dunlop's "Collection of Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, Directories, Books of Discipline, etc.," Edinburgh, 1719-22, 2 volumes, as also a large paper copy of the beautiful Bible issued at Edinburgh by His Majesty's printers for Scotland, Sir D. Hunter Blair and J. Bruce, in 1811, and known as the "Immaculate Bible" from its typographical excellence and freedom from inaccuracies, deserve mention. The latter is now rare.

Mr. Gray has many works on witchcraft, among which are "Sadducismus Debellatus: or, a True Narrative of the Sorceries and Witchcrafts exercis'd the Devil and his Instruments upon Mrs. Christian Shaw," London, 1698; and Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth or, An Essay on the Invisible People going under the name of Elves, Faunes, and Fairies," 1815. The first edition is said to have been issued in 1691, but not a copy is known, and the reprint is scarce, as only 100 copies were printed.

Poetry and the Drama are present in the form of

good editions of the works of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Buckingham, Congreve, Cibber, Farquhar, Ford, Garrick, Greene, Marlowe, Marston, Massinger, Peele, Rowe, the Shadwells, Sheridan, Southerne, Webster, Lillo, Foote, Otway, Lee, Shirley, Dekker, Brome, Mrs. Centlivre, Suckling, Randolph, Glapthorne, Heywood, D'Urfey, Chapman, Wycherley, Steele, Aaron Hill, etc., besides many collections. Shakespeare is represented, inter alia, by Mr. Payne Collier's edition, 8 volumes, "with the purest text and the briefest notes." Fifty-five copies were printed for subscribers, over twenty of whom resided in Glasgow and neighbourhood. First editions of several of Shelley's works, Rogers's Poems and "Italy," nearly all Joseph Ritson's works, and an almost complete set of the remarkable works issued under the editorship of W. B. D. D. Turnbull are in the collection. Of these latter, we may mention the very rare and interesting "Legende Catholica; a Lytle Boke of Seyntlie Gestes, Edin., 1840, 40 copies printed; "Owain Miles, and other inedited Fragments of Ancient English Poetry," illuminated title-page, Edin., 1837, 32 copies printed; “Vision of Tundale," Edin., 1843, 105 copies printed; "Fragmenta Scoto-Monasticon," Edin., 1842, 70 copies printed.

In the domain of Scottish Poetry there is a plethora of riches. Most important are Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling's Tragedie of Darius, 1604;" Aurora, 1604 (the only edition); a Paraenesis to the Prince, 1604 (never reprinted); The Monarchicke Tragedies, 1607; The Alexandraean, 1616; Barbour's Bruce, Edinburgh, 1670, black-letter; another copy, Glasgow, 1737; another copy, black-letter, 1758 (the real date of this is supposed to be 1716); Blind Harry's Sir William Wallace, Edinburgh, 1705 and 1758 (this is uniform with the Bruce of the same date, and is supposed to be similarly misdated), Glasgow, 1736 and 1747; Sir David Lyndsay's works, Glas.,

1683, black-letter, and other editions; Wyntoun's Chronicle of Scotland, edited by Macpherson, 2 volumes, large paper, 1795 (275 copies printed, 25 on large paper); Leyden's edition of the Complaynt of Scotland, large paper copy; Curious Poems written at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, by Mr. James Macalpie, Sheriff-Substitute of Renfrewshire, 1694, and edited by William Motherwell, Paisley, 1828 (only 30 copies printed); Dougal Graham's Poetical History of the Rebellion, third, 1774, fifth, 1787, eighth, 1808, ninth, 1812, and subsequent editions; the first edition of Herd's Collection of Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., the first edition of Ferguson's Poems, and the Poems of the intimate contemporaries of Burns, such as Lapraik, Sillar, Little,

etc.

The production of Home's play of "Douglas" on the stage of the Edinburgh playhouse was the beginning of a very fierce ecclesiastical war, in which the favourite method of the time, pamphleteering, played a principal part. Mr. Gray has many of these productions. Perhaps the most virulent of them was "The Player's Scourge; or, a detection of the ranting prophanity and regnant impiety of stage plays, and their wicked encouragers and frequenters; and especially against the nine prophane pagan priests, falsely called ministers of the Gospel, who countenanced the thrice-cursed tragedy called Douglas." The writer was a Cameronian minister in the Calton of Glasgow named Hugh Innes. He stigmatizes the merry company of players as "Imps of Satan and actors of his devices. . . . the most profligate wretches, and the vilest vermin that hell ever vomited out; the filth and garbage of the earth, the scum and stain of human nature," with other similar uncomplimentary metaphors, and proposes to mutilate them and send them back to their native lands of England and Ireland whence," he fiercely adds, "most of our wicked