The label on the paper-covered boards gives the price of the volume as 9s. 6d., a fairish price for the neat, but in no way remarkable piece of book-making which Thomas Davison executed for the publishers. Some copies of the first edition show a variation in the imprint: Messrs. Taylor and Hessey having opened a new shop at 13, Waterloo Place, this address was printed in a line below the old one. Occasion was also taken, at this time, to furnish the book with a half-title. Octavo. COLLATION: _iv, 341 pp._ SAMUEL PEPYS (1633-1703) 75. Memoirs | Of | Samuel Pepys, Esq. F.R.S. | [Two lines] Comprising | His Diary | From 1659-1669, | Deciphered By The Rev. John Smith, A.B. Of St. John's College, Cambridge, | From The Original Short-Hand MS. In The Pepysian Library, | [Two lines] [Copy of one of Pepys's book-plates] Edited By | Richard, Lord Braybrooke. | In Two Volumes. | Vol. I. | London: | Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street. | MDCCCXXV. To the information given on the title-page, the noble editor adds some further facts in a preface. He says that the six volumes, closely written in short-hand by Pepys himself, had formed a part of the collection of books and prints bequeathed to Magdalen College, where they had remained unexamined (from the date of Pepys's death) until the appointment of Lord Braybrooke's brother, George Neville, afterwards called Grenville, as master of the College. Under Neville's auspices they were deciphered by Mr. Smith, whom his lordship had not the pleasure of knowing. Pepys used short-hand for his notes because he often had things to say which he did not think fit for all the world to know; and Lord Braybrooke found it "absolutely necessary" to "curtail the MS. materially." The complete journal, all that it is possible to print, was not issued until 1893. Colburn, the publisher, known for his successful ventures, and especially for the series called _Colburn's Modern Standard Novelists_ and _The Literary Gazette_, containing works by Bulwer Lytton, Lady Morgan, Captain Marryat, and others, had been so fortunate with an issue of Evelyn's _Diary_ that he was led into the present undertaking. With this edition, which sold at six pounds six shillings, and with two succeeding editions selling at five guineas, he is reputed to have made a handsome profit on the twenty-two hundred pounds paid for the copyright.