Sales catalogue 511: Maggs Bros

Date:
1928
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/68
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 511: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/464 page 26
    Beattie (James)—continued. was preparing a book in which he would prove that Chatterton never wrote the poems in question, and that the same colour of style and measures of verse had been used by other poets of Rowley’s age. , ‘You ‘seem to wish to know what I think of Ossian. I will tell you honestly that I have been an unbeliever in him from the beginning; and what is worse, that I am one of those who never greatly admired him. I admit the merit of particular passages. His rocks, torrents, mists, and heath, are very good in their way; and I have often had enough of them when I have been travelling or sojourning in the highlands. But the life and soul of the greater poetry is wanting—men and manners. I am intimately acquainted with the character of almost every personage in Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, and Milton; but Ossian’s highlanders seem to be all wrapt up in their native mist, and to speak nothing but their native Erst; which I do not understand. ‘‘ That the poems in question were written or composed fifteen hundred years ago by the Ossian, the son of a petty king in an obscure corner in the highlands of Scotland, seems to me perfectly incredible. That the hall, the horses, the chariots, the women, of Morven (now called Morvern) were such in those days, as they are represented in these poems, is absolutely impossible. That so much refinement should prevail among barbarians (for such the highlanders of Scotland undoubtedly were at a period much later than the fifth or sixth century), is like nothing in history or in nature that has as yet been heard of. But I will not state all my objections to the antiquity of Ossian; for indeed they are more than I have time to write at present, or you would have patience to read.’’ EKtc., etc. 135 BENNETT (Arnold). Don Juan de Marana: A Play in Four Acts. Portrait. 8vo, original half binding, uncut, as issued, London, Privately Printed' for Subscribers only, and signed by the Author. 1923. £3 3s 135A ———— The Bright Island. FIRST EDITION. Royal 8vo, ovzginal vellum. London, 1924. £2 2s One of 200 copies signed by the Author. 136 ——_— The Love Match. A Play in Five Scenes. FIRST EDITION. Post 8vo, ovzgznal cloth. London, 1922. 18s With Arnold Bennett’s Signed Card inserted. 137 ———— “‘ The Lost Cir! ’? Autograph Manuscript Signed. 134 pp., 4to. 30th May, 1920. £25 An interesting short story entirely in the hand of Arnold Bennett. Also a letter from Arnold Bennett concerning the manuscript.
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