First (?) edition: a fascinating pamphlet marking a critical epoch in the history of the University of Paris and the first occasion on which Ramus came into prominence as champion of his University and of higher education in general.

In the spring of 1557 an exceptionally violent ‘town and gown fight’ on the Pré-aux-Clercs with several casualties had led to a decree from the King and Parliament forbidding the use of the field to the University, the expulsion of all scholars not living in College, the closing of all College gates at 6 o’clock, suspension of all public lectures, etc. A deputation from the University to the King, of which Ramus was a member, succeeded in getting the decree rescinded. In this report, read to the assembled University, Ramus gives details of the arguments advanced in pleading their cause and a triumphant exposition of the success achieved.

He insists on the need for healthy open-air exercise both for students and teachers, a point developed in great detail in pleading for the return of the Pré-aux-Clercs to the University, not only by right of tradition but as a necessity. Considering how many ‘sphaeristeria’ (tennis-courts), public houses, etc., had arisen in the Latin Quarter in the last 30 years, it was all the more essential to provide open-air playing fields and he even insists on larger new spaces outside the Porte St. Jacques and the Porte St. Victor. In this passage he gives incidentally what appears to be a complete list of the Colleges then existing in Paris University.

Ong, Inventory, no. 493n, notes that the Bibliothèque Nationale lists this as the first edition, but inasmuch as it prints a corrected text incorporating emendations listed in the errata to the other edition of the same year, it is probably the second. Only the Harvard copy listed in the US.

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[JOHNSON, Samuel].

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell … 1775.

Unacknowledged second edition. Two thousand copies of the first edition were printed as far as sheet R when Strahan, sensing the demand, decided to increase the press run to four thousand. The 2000 overrun sheets, T-Z and 2A-2B, and a reprint of the earlier sheets A-D and F-R, may be identified by an asterisked signature on the first leaf of each gathering, needed to distinguish whether the sheets were to be bound with the twelve-line or six-line errata, five of the eleven errors having been corrected in the reprinting. Signature E does not have an asterisk (Todd thinks that it was the first sheet to be reprinted before the need to distinguish the settings was realised), nor does S, apparently deferred until the end and then worked off continuously in 4000 copies. These complications were due in no small measure to Johnson’s dilatory revision of proofs.

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A MOCKERY OF MELANCHOLY RUFIANDER, Fabius Jocosus, pseud. [Friedrich Julius ROTTMANN]. 

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