other
times--which he calls the golden days of the bibliomania--when he
reflects upon his lusty efforts in securing an _Exemplar
Steevensianum_!

[Footnote 409: If Lysander's efforts begin to relax--what
must be the debilitated mental state of the poor annotator,
who has accompanied the book-orator thus long and thus
laboriously? Can STEEVENS receive justice at _my_
hands--when my friends, aided by hot madeira, and beauty's
animating glances, acknowledge their exhausted state of
intellect?! However, I will make an effort:

'nothing extenuate
Nor set down aught in malice.'

The respectable compiler of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol.
lxx. p. 178, has given us some amusing particulars of
Steevens's literary life: of his coming from Hampstead to
London, at the chill break of day, when the overhanging
clouds were yet charged with the 'inky' purple of night--in
order, like a true book-chevalier, to embrace the first dank
impression, or proof sheet, of his own famous octavo edition
of _Shakspeare_; and of Mr. Bulmer's sumptuous impression of
the text of the same. All this is well enough, and savours
of the proper spirit of BIBLIOMANIACISM: and the edition of
our immortal bard, in fifteen well printed octavo volumes,
(1793) is a splendid and durable monument of the researches
of George Steevens. There were from 20 to 25 copies of the
octavo edition printed upon LARGE PAPER; and Lord Spencer
possesses, by bequest, Mr. Steevens' own copy of the same,
illustrated with a great number of rare and precious prints;
to which, however, his Lordship, with his usual zeal and
taste, has made additions more valuable even than the gift
in its original form. The 8vo. edition of 1793 is covetted
with an eagerness of which it is not very easy to account
for the cause; since the subsequent one of 1803, in 21
octavo volumes, is more useful on many accounts: and
contains Steevens's corrections and additions in every play,
as well as 177, in particular, in that of Macbeth. But I am
well aware of the stubbornness and petulancy with which the
previous edition is contended for in point of superiority,
both round a private and public table; and, leaving the
collector to revel in the luxury of an uncut, half-bound,
morocco copy of the same