---- _Milton: a Poem._ Engraved throughout, and ornamented with designs by Blake, blue morocco by Mackenzie. Beckford (1882), £230. _Browning._--Robert Browning’s first publication, which appeared when its author was in his twenty-first year, is a great rarity. “Pauline; a Fragment of a Confession. ‘Plus ne suis ce que j’ai été, Et ne le sçaurois jamais être.’--_Marot._ London: Saunders & Otley, Conduit Street, 1833.” Mr. Slater says that there are about eight copies known, and that it was supposed to be worth £40 or £50. A copy, with an autograph note by the author, was sold at Alfred Crampton’s sale for £145. Mr. Thomas J. Wise printed a facsimile reprint in 1886, which has been used by the forger to deceive. Mr. Slater had seen a “doctored” copy of this reprint, in which Wise’s title and prefatory note were removed, the paper was rotted to make it porous, and the leaves were smoked to give them a mellow appearance. Mr. Wise’s paper is thicker than the original, and Mr. Slater gives a hint how to distinguish the two:-- “On the final page (71) appear the words--‘Richmond, October 22, 1832.’ If the word ‘October’ is printed in _thin_ italics the book is without doubt a reprint. So far as I am aware, there is no other difference between Mr. Wise’s excellent reprint and the original (the paper excepted).” _Burns._--The most amazing price ever realised for a modern book was that of £572 for “Poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect. By Robert Burns. _Kilmarnock_, 1786.” The original price of this octavo volume was three shillings. The history of the very fine copy sold in Edinburgh in February 1898 is traced back about eighty years by a writer in _Literature_. In 1870 it was sold for six guineas to G. B. Simpson, of Dundee, who sold it in 1879, with some other books, to A. C. Lamb for £124. The price of the Kilmarnock Burns has steadily advanced from £3, 10s. in 1858 to £111 in 1888, and then it made the immense leap to £572. _Byron._--“Poems on Various Occasions” (Newark, 1807, 8vo) sold at Alfred Crampton’s sale for £45. “The Waltz” (1813, pp. 27), published without a wrapper at 3s., sold at the same sale for £55. Mr. Slater says that an uncut copy has been sold by auction for £86. _Meredith._--A fine uncut copy of George Meredith’s Poems, 1851, sold at a sale of Rare Books and Manuscripts (Sotheby, March 1897) for £17, 10s. Another copy with alterations in the author’s autograph (Sotheby, June 1897) sold for £25.