RARE EDITIONS OF MILTONIA ARE SHOWN AT TREASURE ROOM

An exhibition of rare copies and first editions of Milton's works is featured this week in the Treasure Room at Widener.

Perhaps the most interesting of these books is a first edition of Milton's minor poems. Before the title page there is engraving of the author done by W. Marshall, Milton, evidently disliking the picture wrote a Greek comment under the picture, which Marshall, ignorant of Greek and believing the comment to be complimentary, caused to be engraved on the plate. Milton's comment, translated, follows:

"Who, that my real lineament has scanned,

Will not in this detect a bungler's hand.

My friends, in doubt on whom his art was tried.

The idiot lemner's vain attempt deride.

A first edition of Comus, published in 1637 and believed to be one of the copies used when the masque was first presented, is also of interest to bibliophiles. There are also first editions of Lycidas and Paradise Lost.

A proclamation published on August 13, 1660, which condemns two of Milton's political pamphlets as containing 'treasonable passages" and "impious endeavors to justifle the horrid and unmatchable murther" of King Charles I, may also be seen.