RAFN

8vo, 3 pp. Bifolium. The letter, on both sides of the first leaf, runs to thirty-seven lines, with nine lines in Icelandic (in another hand?) on the recto of the second page. Fair, on aged paper, and laid down onto a mount by the reverse of the second leaf. The mount is captioned in a contemporary hand. The first part of the letter refers to a facsimile which Ellis has 'caused to be executed and transmitted hither'. Rafn has already received this 'from Mr. Worsaae'. It contains 'an extract possessing interest for us of Ottar's and Ulfstein's account of travels in the North'.

Symington (1825-98), a minor Scottish poet, traveller and author, spent a year in America and edited a selection of President Garfield's speeches, and thus was accorded an entry in Appleton's Cyclopaedia. The poem (four pages, 12mo, on bifoliate, very good with light spotting and staining) is printed in blue, with an engraving in black of (according to the poem) 'a Harp [...] of rare beauty [...] On either side, an alabaster Cross | Of snowy whiteness twined with dew-sprent flowers' and a 'white Dove with an olive branch [...] | Descending'.