First edition of Hazlitt’s final book, an inflammatory collection of gossip published just weeks before his death. ‘All the ill-nature in the book is Northcote’s; and all, or almost all, the talent, Hazlitt’s’ (Examiner, May 1833).

Hazlitt had begun to record his conversations with Northcote, the last surviving member of Johnson’s circle and like Hazlitt both an artist and author, in 1826, publishing them in the New Monthly Magazine under the title ‘Boswell Redivivus’. ‘Four instalments appeared; they were much talked about, and Northcote began to grow animated [and] to repudiate his share in the Conversations … [He] burst into a theatrical rage, sent for Mr. Colburn, the publisher of the New Monthly Magazine, abused the editor, desired that the publication of “those awful papers” should abruptly cease, and gave all the outward signs of being excessively indignant and incensed. It was all stage-playing, however, and the biographer of Hazlitt relates that the painter saw the critic as often and as amicably as ever, that notes of the Conversations were still taken down … and that they continued to appear in print’ (from the introductory note to the 1894 edition, quoted in Bentley’s Private List).

With all the usual cancels, but in a binding variant not recorded by Keynes.

Keynes 99.

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[MACKENZIE, Lieutenant-Colonel George, and others, defendants.]

The Trial, before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, at the Instance of Daniel Ross, Woodsawer in Aberdeen; against Lieutenant-Colonel George Mackenzie, Captain Felix Bryan Macdonough, Serjeants Andrew Mackay & Alex. Sutherland, all of the late Regiment of Ross & Cromarty Rangers: for the Murder of John Ross, late Soldier in the Corps of Riflemen, in the Streets of Aberdeen, on Fourth of June, 1802.

Sole edition. This controversial trial was brought as a private prosecution after the Lord Advocate, Charles Hope, had decided not to prosecute any officers or soldiers for killing four peaceable inhabitants of Aberdeen after celebrations of the King’s birthday on 4 June 1802 had got out of control. Men and boys in Castle Street in high spirits were pelting each other with dirt, straw, and garbage, when Mackenzie and Mcdonough, who had been drinking with the magistrates and were rather intoxicated, walked back to their barracks and were pelted too. Soldiers from the Ross & Cromarty Rangers then joined in, apparently without orders. While soldiers and citizens jostled up and down Castle Street, Mcdonough attempted to calm the situation. Presently he ordered the soldiers to prime and load to intimidate the crowd, but then ordered them to withdraw to their barracks. Mackenzie meanwhile stayed in his quarters. Later the soldiers came out again, and on three occasions deliberately took aim and fired on the populace, although it was not clear whether any command to fire had been given. A serjeant was at the head of the group that shot John Ross, but he was not positively identified as one of the defendants.

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MEYERS, Jeffrey, editor.

Wyndham Lewis, A Revaluation. New essays.

First edition, printing on pp. 238-251 Bridson’s essay ‘The Human Age in Retrospect’, his last published work.

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