MR. HILL'S LIBRARY. 263

CHAPTER XV.

LIBRARY OF GEORGE WINGATE HILL, ESQ., CASHIER, UNION
BANK OF SCOTLAND ; RESIDENCE, PRINCES TERRACE,
DOWANHILL.

Character of Mr. Hill's Library — Poetry and the
Drama — Scottish Poetry — Scottish Biography ^ His-
tory, and Topography — Ruskins Works — Other Fine
Art Books — Fiction — Bibliography, dc.

This is an excellent library, leisurely and judiciously
chosen. Mr. Hill has ranged over the whole field of
literature, and culled with fine discrimination choice
flowers here and there. His marked liking for the
domain of the heather and the thistle has not dulled
his appreciation of the products of other lands, and his
library, while having strongly marked .Scottish features,
Is well-balanced and comprehensive. It is a gathering
of friends deliberately chosen, with whom there are
none but the happiest associations. The dominant
feeling with Mr. Hill being generally, we fancy, not so
much to possess a rarity as a desirable book, there are
few of extreme rarity to chronicle. In our first class,
we will only mention a large paper copy of the
** Immaculate" Bible, printed by Sir James Hunter
Blair and Coy. ; Dunlop's Confession of Faith,
etc. ; and the edition of the Psalms, with music,
printed by the heirs of Andro Hart, at Edinburgh, in
1635, commonly known as Knox's Liturgy or Psalter.
This was the edition from which the admirable reprint
edited by the Rev. Neil Livingstone was taken. The
leading editions of the Scottish Psalter are those of
1595, 1615, and 1635. Its first oflScial appearance was


264 THE LIBRARIES OF GLASGOW.

in 1564| and it was discarded for the present metrical
version in 1650. Between these dates about forty
editions appeared. David Laingfs copy of the 1635
edition sold at £15 15s.

Mr. Hill was a subscriber to Mr. J. Payne Collier's
edition of Shakespeare with the ** purest text and the
briefest notes/' and among other editions of the gpreat
dramatist's works has Pickering^s beautiful diamond
edition, that edited by Dyce, and that known as the
Cambridge Shakespeare. The dates and publishers of
the editions of the works of Spenser, Marlowe, Peele,
Green, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Chaucer, Otway, Middleton, Ford, Shirley,
Foote, Butler, Dryden, Chatterton, Cowper, Shelley,
Byron, Southey, Wordsworth, and other poets need
not be detailed ; sufficient to say that they are all
editions of high repute. Ritson's works, Dodsley's Old
Plays, the Aldine series of Poets, Child's Ballads,
Utterson's Early Popular Poetry, the publications of
the Percy Society, with suppressed parts, the Percv
Folio MS., Rogers' Poems and Italy (1830-34, beauti*
ful copies), and an edition of Goethe's Faust, published
at London in 1838, in 2 volumes (50 copies printed, 40
for sale), occupy places in this division, a division
characterized by high all-round excellence.

We might dismiss the sections containing Scottish
poetry in a sentence, by saying that they contain the
works of every Scottish poet whose fame has been
more than national, and many more of lesser merit :
but such summary procedure would neither be fair to
the authors or to Mr. Hill, nor respectful treatment of
that failing for verse-making which moved some one to
say that if a gun were fired at random in any of our
streets it would be sure to bring down a poet

Of Bums, Mr. Hill has the second and third editions
issued in Edinburgh and London respectively in 1787,
an uncut copy of that published at Edinburgh in 1811,
2 volumes ; Hogg and Motherwell's edition, 5 volumes.



MR HILL'S LIBRARY. 265

Macpherson's edition of Wyntoun's Chronicle of Scot-
land is bound in pigskin, a material not susceptible
of a very fine polish, Mr. Hill's copy of Leyden's
edition of the Complaynt of Scotland is a large paper
one, and he has a large as well as a small paper copy
of Ancient Scottish Poems from the MS. of George
Bannatyne. The Tea-Table Miscellany, 3 volumes,
r2mo, 1733, is worthy of notice as an edition not men-
tioned by Lowndes, and one rarely seen for sale. Mr.
Hill has the original edition of Herd's Ancient
Scottish Ballads, Ramsay's Evergreen, Chambers's
Songs of Scotland, Cunningham's Songs of Scotland,
Peter Buchan's Ballads, Jamieson's Scottish Songs
{with a portion of the manuscript), Kinloch s Scottish
Ballads, Scotish Poems of the Sixteenth Century, Sib-
bald s Chronicle of Ancient Scottish Poetry, Mother-
well's Minstrelsy, Gilchrist's Scottish Ballads, the col-
lection of songs and ballads edited by John Pinkerton,
Finlay's Ballads, Johnson's Scots Musical Museum.
He has also Chalmers's fine edition of Sir David Lynd-
say's works, 3 volumes, 1806 ; Laing's Select Remains
of Ancient Popular Poetry, uncut, 1822 ; his Fugitive
Poetry, 2 volumes, uncut, first and second series, 1825-
1853 ; and Early Metrical Tales, 1826 ; his editions of
Dunbar, Henryson, and Lyndsay, and many other of
his publications, and likewise those of James Maid-
ment; the well-known but scarce biographies of the
families of Douglas and Angus, the Bruces and Comyns,
the Somervilles, and other prominent houses are pre-
sent, supplementing a capital array of the best and most
authoritative works on the general history and topo-
graphy of Scotland. Of these we need only single out
for separate mention a beautiful large paper copy of
Billings' Baronial Antiquities, a copy of similar ampli-
tude of margin of Sir Walter Scott's JBorder Antiquities,
and fine copies of Jones's Critical Essay upon the In-
habitants of Scotland, White's Kintyre, Bellenden's
translation of Boece's Chronicle, Pennant's Tour in



266 THE LIBRARIES OF OLASOOW.

Scotland and Wales, and Ure's History of Rutherglen
and East Kilbride, with the life of Ure by Gray bound
up with it.

Mr. Hill is a member of the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland, and possesses the Transactions of that body
from the year 1851. He has many of the books on
Glasgow which every Glasgow collector feels anxious
to obtain, and has subscribed for the best of the many
works brought out on the city within the last thirty
years or so. He has Adam Sim's (Coulter) copy of
the Memorabilia of Glasgow, 1835, the same gentle-
man's copy of the Chronicle of the Isles, Glasgow, 1826,
a very curious work, much of which was written by
Gabriel Neil, the biographer and editor of Zachary
Boyd ; a large paper copy of the reprint of M*Ure»
View of Glasgow, and very fine copies of Stuart's,
Swan s, and other volumes of Glasgow views.

Mr. Hill's copy of Henderson's Scottish Proverbs
belonged to William Motherwell, the poet It is in
large paper, and uncut. The Paisley Magazine is of
course present. Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, first
edition, in spotless purity, is here; Crombie's Modern
Athenians, Burton's Scot Abroad, and St. John's Sport
in Moray. Buckle the historian's copy of the first
edition of Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary has found a

()resent resting-place in Mr. Hill's library. The col-
ection contains a complete set of the Oxford classics,
and a serieS' of general histories and biographies so
comprehensive as to leave out no great name or
country.

Few collectors will have more of Ruskin's works
than Mr. Hill, and none, finer copies. The most
valuable work, from a pecuniary point of view,
after some of Ruskin's, among the fine-art books is
probably Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, large paper.
A copy appeared not long ago in a bookseller’s cata-
logue at £23 10s. It is a handsome book. Of Uamer-
ton*s Etching and Etchers the three editions are here,



MR. HILL'S LIBRARY. 267

and the other works of a kindred nature are — Kirk-
Patrick Sharpens Etchings, Dibdin's Typographical
Antiquities, Shaw's Dresses and Decorations, large
paper ; the same writer's Illuminated Ornaments, large
paper; Strutt's Habits, Humphrey's Printing, La-
croix's works on Mediaeval France, some of Bewick's
illustrated volumes, Cruikshank's Comic Almanac, and
many illustrated editions of Walton and Cotton's
Angler.

Science is better represented than in many larger
libraries. The works are all modern, and not confined
to any one department of scientific labour.

So excellently-selected a library necessarily contains
a well-filled press of fiction. Scott's novels are in 48
volumes, those of Fielding and Thackeray are editions
deluxe, while Dickens, Lytton, Disraeli, Smollett,
Defoe, and other writers are also in handsome form.
Of Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe there are
several separate editions of high value on account of
their illustrations. Of the Arabian Nights' Entertain-
ments there are the first edition of Lane's version, and
the luxurious and free translation issued by the Villon
Society.

Bibliography has due recognition. Besides the
ordinary books of reference, there is a fine uncut copy
of the Bibliotheca Anglo Poetica, Nicholl's Anecdotes
Illustrative of the Eighteenth Century, Sir Egerton
Brydges' Restituta and Censura Literaria, Dibdin's
Decameron, Tour in France and Germany, uncut, Tour
in England and Scotland, uncut. The Bibliomania,.
Burton’s Bookhunter, and Collier's Decameron.

Although good bindings do not always denote good
books, good books should always be in good bindings.
Given a book excellent in subject and treatment, well-
printed on good paper, a beautiful coat is a natural
complement. It is but a due recognition of the
author, and skill and taste of the printer. Mr. Hill
is not wanting in a proper appreciation of either. His

268 THE LIBRARIES OF GLASGOW.

books are handsomely and appropriately bound. The
seductive influence of charming books in equally charm-
ing garb is powerful, and tempts one to linger over
them, even after one has ceased to have anything
to say, and the patience of the reader is exhausted.
Few libraries contain so many works which no gentle-
man's library should be without, and few so small a
number of books the possession of which does not add
to, nor their absence mar the importance of, a library
as the collection of which we now take leave.