ions
towards restoring the corrupted texts of our poets.

[Footnote 465: The last new editions of our standard
belles-lettres writers are the following: which should be
found in every gentleman's library. _Shakspeare_, 1793, 15
vols., or 1803, 21 vols. (vide p. 427, ante); _Pope_, by
_Jos. Warton_; 1795, 8 vols. 8vo.; or by _Lisle Bowles_,
1806, 9 vols. 8vo.; _Spenser_, by _H.J. Todd_, 1805, 8 vols.
8vo.; _Milton_, by _the Same_, 7 vols., 8vo.; _Massinger_,
by _W. Gifford_, 1806, 4 vols. 8vo.; _Sir David Lyndsay_, by
_George Chalmers_, 1806, 3 vols. 8vo.; _Dryden_, by _Walter
Scott_, 1808, 18 vols. 8vo.; _Churchill_, by ----, 1805, 2
vols. 8vo.; _Hudibras_, by _Dr. Grey_, 1744, or 1809, 2
vols. 8vo.; _Ben. Jonson_, by _W. Gifford_ (_sub prelo_);
and _Bishop Corbett's Poems_, by _Octavius Gilchrist_, 1807,
8vo.]

PHIL. Yet forgive me if I avow that this same country, whose editorial
labours you are thus commending, is shamefully deficient in the
cultivation of _Ancient English History_! I speak my sentiments
roundly upon this subject: because you know, Lysander, how vigilantly
I have cultivated it, and how long and keenly I have expressed my
regret at the almost total apathy which prevails respecting it. There
is no country upon earth which has a more plentiful or faithful stock
of historians than our own; and if it were only to discover how
superficially some of our recent and popular historians have written
upon it, it were surely worth the labour of investigation to examine
the yet existing records of past ages.

LOREN. To effect this completely, you should have a NATIONAL PRESS.

LIS. And why not? Have we here no patriotic spirit similar to that
which influenced the Francises, Richlieus, Colberts, and Louises of
France?

ALMAN. You are getting into bibliographical politics! Proceed, good
Lysander, with your other probable means of cure.

LYSAND. In the _fourth place_, the erection of PUBLIC
INSTITUTIONS[466] is of great service in diffusing a love of books for
their intrinsic utility, and is of very general advantage to scholars
and authors who cannot purchase every book which they find it
necessary to consult.

[Footnote 466: The ROYAL, LONDON, SURREY, AND RUSSEL
INSTITUTIONS, have been the means of concentrating, in
divers parts of the metropolis, large libraries of useful
books; which, it is to be hoped, will event