THE FIRST [-SIXTH] PART OF MISCELLANY POEMS. Containing variety of new translations of the ancient poets: together with several original poems. By the most eminent hands. Publish'd by Mr. Dryden The fourth edition.

Six volumes bound in three, 12mo, pp. [ii], xxxvi, [xvi], 360; [x], 396; [x], xv, [i], 380; [x], 395; [x], 396; [x], 420; with an engraved frontispiece to each volume; nice bound in contemporary red morocco, panelled in gilt, spines gilt, dark green morocco labels (heads and tails of spines a little worn); marbled endpapers, gilt edges. First collected edition, and a highly important edition of what became known as 'Tonson's Miscellany'. The first two title-pages in this small-format printing bear the designation 'fourth edition', but in fact the contents of the six volumes have been significantly altered. In the sixth volume, for example, as Griffith points out in his bibliography of Pope, pp. 285-406 contain 46 poems which had not been included in 1709 (though Tonson had nothing new by Pope himself on offer). The fact that the title-pages all read 'publish'd by Mr. Dryden' is somewhat misleading. As Macdonald remarks in his bibliography of Dryden: 'This is something of a publisher's flourish, for although Tonson and Dryden were in close collaboration at any rate over Sylvae [Part II], Dryden probably acted rather as an occasional adviser in the four parts published during his lifetime than as the actual selector of his fellow poets This edition has no very close relation to the former volumes of Miscellanies. The pieces reprinted frequently occur in the corresponding volumes of the original editions, but often they are in different volumes and many poems of earlier date such as Milton's L'Allegro are included'. Among the other additions are fifteen poems by John Donne, none of whose verse had appeared in print for almost fifty years this miscellany is not noted by Keynes. Case 162 1e, 2e, 3d, 4c, 5b and 6b; Macdonald, Dryden, 49; Griffith, Pope, 81. Provenance. Engraved armorial bookplates of Robert Gunning in volumes I-II as a baronet, in volume III as plain Robert Gunning Esq. This must be Sir Robert Gunning (1731-1816), distinguished British diplomat, posted to Denmark and then Russia, who was made a baronet in 1778.…