Cowper gave the copyright to Johnson, who afterward, when the work proved so successful, would have allowed him to take back his gift, but Cowper refused. This Johnson was also the publisher of Horne Tooke, Fuseli, Bonnycastle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Miss Edgeworth. He, as well as his successor, Rowland Hunter, was a dissenter, and the building which he occupied, we are told, was "plain and unadorned, befitting the head-quarters of the bookselling of Protestant Dissent." Charles Knight, in _Shadows of the Old Booksellers_, has a paragraph, which must be quoted in connection with the appearance of Johnson's books. "With wire-wove hot-pres'd paper's glossy glare, Blind all the wise, and make the stupid stare." The publisher of Cowper was an exception to his brother publishers of that day, who are addressed in these lines. Aikin says of him, "It is proper to mention that his true regard for the interests of literature rendered him an enemy to that typographical luxury which, joined to the necessary increase of expense in printing, has so much enhanced the price of new books as to be a material obstacle to the indulgence of a laudable and reasonable curiosity to the reading public." It is quite certain that in making the _Task_ he did not sin against these principles of philanthropy, even if he sinned against many of the rules of good book-making. Octavo. COLLATION: _4 ll., 359 pp._ ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) 61. Poems, | Chiefly In The | Scottish Dialect, | By | Robert Burns. | [Quotation] Kilmarnock: | Printed By John Wilson. | M,DCC,LXXXVI. One of Burns's warmest friends, Gavin Hamilton, advised him to publish his poems in order to get enough money to emigrate to Jamaica, where it was hoped he would escape from the complications incident upon his love affair with Jean Armour. In the preface Burns tells us that none of the poems was written with a view to publication, but as a counterpoise to the troubles of the world.