in the number of the Gazette for May 25 there is this:—
MR. Ogilby’s Lottery of Books (Adventurers coming in so fast that they cannot in so short Time be methodically registered) opens not till Tuesday the 2d of June; then not failing to draw; at the old Theatre between Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Vere street.
Ogilby had had a venture before this, about which there seems to have been some little difficulty, as in his “Proposal” for this same lottery he refers to aspersions which have been made. A correspondent of the Gentleman’s Magazine of nearly a hundred years ago gives as a curiosity even then a copy of this “Proposal,” which, though rather long, is very interesting, and so we subjoin it:—
A SECOND PROPOSAL, by the Author, for the better and more speedy Vendition of several Volumes, (his own Works,) by the way of a standing Lottery, licensed by his Royal Highness the Duke of York, and Assistants at the Corporation of the royal Fishing.
WHEREAS John Ogilby, esq., erected a standing Lottery of Books, and completely furnished the same with very large, fair, and special Volumes, all of his own Designment and Composure, at vast Expense, Labour and Study of twenty Years; the like Impressions never before exhibited in the English Tongue. Which according to the appointed Time, on the 10th of May, 1665, opened; and to the general Satisfaction of the Adventurers, with no less Hopes of a clear Despatch and fair Advantage to the Author, was several Days in Drawing: when its Proceedings were stopt by the then growing Sickness and lay discontinued under the Arrest of that common Calamity, till the next Year’s more violent and