In conclusion, there are some not unentertaining notices of a Superb Bookseller. This personage seems not altogether to have disdained genius in its humbler garb and more retired walks, yet the whole of his establishment, his mansion, his furniture, his symposia, seemed intended for the noble and the great alone. A great and popular house, he was well aware, would at any time sell a considerable impression of any thing. On such occasions he was splendidly liberal; and as theatrical managers, when they get up a new play, are careless of the expence of decorations, dresses, and scenery, so would our Superb Bookseller give a great and noble author every advantage of the finest wire-wove paper and Bulmer’s typography, He nevertheless had the character of a disposition to drive a hard bargain with such authors as were untitled, unbeneficed, (or if it may be permitted to coin a word) unincomed. He is said to have laboured under the imputation of having sacrificed at the shrine of _greater_ friends, it may not be said on the score of lucre, the claims of an individual, whose worth, talents, and amiable manners, had been long known and acknowledged by continued experience of their value. He was accused of having sanctioned, at least by his connivance, an _ex post facto_ attack, written in all the gall of bitterness, and dictated by personal spleen, rather than by an ingenuous spirit of fair criticism, upon a work of great labour and merit, which has hitherto stood, and will continue to stand, the test of time. Here our manuscript seems brought to a conclusion, for after a few desultory hints, of which some are perfectly unintelligible to the Editor, the following quotation occurs in a larger hand-writing. Habeo Neptune gratiam magnam tibi Quam me amisisti a te vix vivum modo Verum si posthac me pedem latum modo Scio imposisse in undam, haud causa ilico ’st Quod nunc voluisti facere, quin facias mihi. Apage, apage te a me—nunc jam post hunc diem Quid crediturus tibi fui, omne credidi. PORSONIANA. Quanquam non commisi quidem ut defensore mihi opus sit adversus obtrectatos, neminem enim dicto quidem læsi, sed adversus obtrectatores, quibus orbis literatus passim infestatur, sicuti suis via insidiatoribus, forum vililitigatoribus, militia provocatoribus. By far the greater part of the pieces which follow are printed from Professor Porson’s own manuscripts. Those which are not so, were either written from his personal dictation, or copied by his permission. The subjoined is, perhaps, the earliest specimen of Porson’s Latinity which has hitherto appeared. The Proemium to the Notes, which, at the request of Maps, alias Nicholson, the Cambridge Bookseller, and which commences facetiously “Lectori si quis erit” was written two years afterwards. This Oration was probably delivered in the Chapel of Trinity College, at the time when it is dated. MAII 29ᵒ 1784.