was bewitched--or I was
careless. It occurred to me to compare the two copies of the tract as
published by Green. The title-pages were exactly alike--not differing by
so much as a fly speck, but one copy contained ten pages of text and the
other only nine.

More [10]than that, the general style and the types were quite different
One was printed in a well-known broad but somewhat used type, such as
could be seen in Green's printing, and the other in a finer font with
much italic. There was no possibility of confusing the two issues. Only
one conclusion was possible. I had in this volume the publication by
Green, and the original issue by Marmaduke Johnson, but with Green's
title-page. So for we seem to rest upon solid ground. It may be surmised
that Green set up his "Isle of Pines" in rivalry to Johnson, but did not
incur the discipline of the authorities; or that he had set it up and
also took over Johnson's edition, using his own title-page; and in
either case it is possible that a simple subterfuge, the imprint, "by
S. G. for Allen Banks and Charles Harper," a London combination of
publishers, caused the tract to escape the attention of the examining
local censors. Here was another step in developing the history of
this tract--the discovery of one of Johnson's issues, except for the
title-page. So far as the American connection is concerned, it only
remains to discover a Johnson issue with a Johnson title-page, for in
his apology and submission to the General Court he states that he had
"affixed" his name to the pamphlet.

THE EUROPEAN EDITIONS

The European connection is also not without interest, for the skit--the
first part of the "Isle of Pines," published without name of author--had
an extraordinary run.

In 1493 a little [11]four-leaved translation into Latin of a Columbus
letter announcing the discovery of islands in the west--De insulis nuper
inventis--ran over Europe, startling the age by a simple relation which
proved a marvellous tale as taken up by Vespuccius, Cortes, and a host
of successors.{1} For a century the darkness of a new found continent
slowly lifted and the record was collected in Ramusio, in De Bry, in
Hulsius, and in Hakluyt, never felling treasuries of the wonderful,
veritable schools for the adventurous. Another century had shown that,
so fer from decreasing in greatness and in opportunities, the field of
discovery had not begun to be tested, and in the summer of 1668 a new
islan