Micajah Perry, Esq; And the fragrant Memory of Thomas Lane Esq.; Deceas'd; and to Mr Richard Perry, of London, Merchants: The following Dialogue (as a Pepper-Corn-Acknowledgement) is humbly Dedicated, by Their most Oblig'd, and most Obedient Servant, JAMES PUCKLE." After this dedication comes the " Preface," which, in the first edition, opened as follows:

"No sooner had Erasmus put forth his excellent Enchiridion, but one cries, there's more Devotion in the Book than in the Writer.

"He that turns Author, or sets up for Knight of the Shire, must expect to have all his Faults publish'd with Additions. "Should any say, The Writer is an Argus abroad, a Mole at Home.

"It's easily answer'd, Moses himself might take good Counsel from a Midianite."

Of this first edition of 1711, there was a second and enlarged issue in the same year, from which the above "forewords" were omitted. In 1713 came a second edition, "Printed for the Author, James Puckle;" and to this followed a third, also dated 1713, to which was prefixed a portrait by Kneller's rival, J. B. Closterman, engraved by George Vertue. This third edition bad, among other things, the ensuing quatrain appended to the preface:

"Go, Little Book, Show to the Fool his Face,
The Knave his Picture, and the Sot his Case:
Tell to each Youth, what is, and what's not, fit;
And Teach to such as want, Sobriety and Wit."

In 1721 the third edition was reprinted at Cork; then came a fourth edition, "with Additions," dated 1723, in which Closterman's portrait was re-engraved by J. Cole. The sub-title," A Grey-Cap, for a GreenHead," borrowed from one Caleb Trench

field, was now added; a fresh Dedication was inserted, which shows that by this time all the original dedicatees were dead; and the book was extended by some fifty pages of "Maxims, Advice, and Cautions, etc.," and by a supplementary group of detached reflections on "Death," with a separate Preface and the general title, "In All Your Glory Memento Mori." In 1724 Puckle died, so that this fourth edition of 1723 is the last he can ever have revised. Subsequent impressions followed in 1733, 1737, 1743, and 1756. An edition was also issued

1

A Cap of Gray Hairs for a Green Head.-Or, The Father's Council To his Son, an Apprentice in London. To which is added, A Discourse on the worth of A good Name-was first published in 1671, the author being described as "Caleb Trenchfield." It had reached a fifth edition in 1710, the year before Puckle's first appearance. Puckle is plainly indebted to Trenchfield in several places, besides taking Trenchfield's title as the sub-title of his own fourth edition.

from the Yorick's Head, Philadelphia, in

1795.

After the fourth edition of 1723, the sale of The Club seems to have declined; and some of the later editions bear suspicious indications of being no more than remainders with fresh title-pages. By the end of the century, in spite of the Philadelphia reprint, the book was apparently dead, without hope of resurrection. But, in 1817, by a freak of fortune, it was selected by a Mr. Edward Walmsley, said to be "a gentleman whose taste led him to the love of embellished books,' as the medium for a series of illustrations by the then all-popular draughtsman on wood, John Thurston. Thurston designed head- and tail-pieces for each of the characters, together with a frontispiece; and these were engraved in facsimile by the best wood-engravers of that time,-John Thompson; Bewick's pupils, Nesbit,

"

White, and Harvey; the two Branstons; Hughes, Thurston Junr., and Miss Mary Byfield. "Every line of the drawing' says the preface-" is marked out upon the block by the Designer, exactly as it appears upon the paper; from this delineation it is the province of the Engraver to cut out a perfect and well-wrought resemblance; to effect which, great ability is requisite, as the least deviation is irremediable, especially when what is technically termed cross hatching occurs, as is fully exemplified in the decoration of this volume." The book was printed by Johnson of Clerkenwell, the author of Typographia, and issued in several forms. In addition to an ordinary impression of five hundred copies, there were two hundred on large paper; eighteen on white, and seven on yellow Chinese paper; seven on satin; one in various colours (printed on one side); one blue, and one yellow. In 1820