Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/69

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Introduction.
lxvii

1 to 506, "Le Fédéraliste"; 507 to 511, "Table des Chapitres Contenus dans ce second Volume."

It is printed in signatures of sixteen pages each, designated by letters, on a fair quality of paper, with type of the size then known as Cicero ordinaire,—about small pica,—leaded, and is without any illustrations, except head-pieces on page 1 of each volume, and an occasional tail-piece at the ends of the numbers.

It is said that in the year 1799 a new edition of The Fœderalist, the fifth in book-form, was published by John Tiebout, in the city of New York; and that the copy which Mr. Madison used and annotated was of that edition.[1]

The most diligent search has been made for a copy of that edition, but without finding it or obtaining any other information concerning it. It is not in any of the principal public libraries, nor, so far as can be learned, is a copy of it in any private library in this part of the country. The newspapers of that period—both Fœderal and Republican—have been carefully examined, with the hope of finding the Proposals for its issue or the advertisement of its publication; personal inquiries have been made of Mr. Tiebout's sons, and of several of the older inhabitants of the city; and those whose intimate knowledge of books entitles them to the respect of every student have been applied to on the subject; yet no trace whatever, beyond the single allusion above referred to, has been obtained from any quarter, concerning this or any other edition of The Fœderalist from the press of John Tiebout. It is, nevertheless, known that such a printer lived and transacted business at No. 358 Pearl Street, in the city of New York, in the year 1799;[2] and it is far from impossible that copies of this rare edition may yet be in existence among the rubbish

  1. Editorial in the Washington City Gazette, February 2, 1818, ante, p. lii.
  2. New York Directory for 1799, p. 365