BRUCE, George. ~ Poems, Ballads, and Songs, on various Occasions. Edinburgh: printed by Oliver & Boyd, and sold by all the booksellers there; also by William Turnbull, Glasgow; and A.K. Newman & Co. London, 1813.
8vo (207 × 120 mm), pp. xvi, [1], 10-215, [1] (prelims mispaginated). Woodcut ornaments. Closed tear (no loss) to gutter of pp. 147-8. Contemporary half morocco. Joints and corners rubbed. Bookplate and shelf mark of Archibald Earl of Eglinton. A very good copy.
First edition, the second of two verse collections by a successful Edinburgh miniature and silhouette painter. Several poems are in Scots dialect and at least two are on artistic subjects: ‘Song, The Enamoured Painter’ and ‘Epistle to a Friend, on the Decay of Taste for the Fine Arts in Scotland, 1812’. This is a subscriber’s copy, one of two copies ordered by Archibald, twelfth Earl of Eglinton (restorer of Eglinton Castle). Painter Henry Raeburn is among the other subscribers. Not in Jackson.