HERBERT AND DIBDIN'S AMES.
BORDE'S BOKE OF KNOWLEDGE—BOWLAND'S CHOISE OF CHANGE—GREENE'S ROYAL EXCHANGE.
Mr. Editor,—I am induced to mention the following misstatement in Herbert's edition of Ames' Typographical Antiquities, enlarged by Dibdin, not by its importance, but by its supplying an appropriate specimen of the benefits which would be conferred on bibliography by your correspondents complying with Dr. Maitland's recommendations.
"Mr. Bindley," says Dibdin, "is in possession of the original impression of Borde's Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, which was successively in the collection of West and Pearson. This copy, and another in the Chetham Library at Manchester, are the only ones known with the following imprint: 'Copland in Fletestrete, at the signe of the Rose Garland.' In the Selden Collection, in the Bodleian Library, and in the copy from which Mr. Upcott published his reprint, we read on the recto of the last leaf, 'Imprented at London in Lothbury ouer agaynste Sainct Margaryte's Church, by me Wyllyam Copland.'"
The copy in the Chetham Library, now lying before me, corresponds with the description of the latter impression. Dibdin's mistake perhaps originated in the last page of the work preceding Borde, which is bound up with four other works, having the following: "Imprinted at London in Fleetestrete by Henry Wykes."
This volume contains—
"The Choise of Change: Containing the Triplicitie of Diuinitie, Philosophie, and Poetrie, Short for memorie, Profitable for Knowledge, and necessary for Maners; whereby the learned may be confirmed, the ignorant instructed, and all men generally recreated. Newly set forth by S.R., Gent and Student in the Universitie of Cambridge. Tria sunt omnia. At London, Printed by Roger Warde, dwelling neere Holborne Conduite, at the sign of the Talbot, An. Dom. 1585."
These letters, S.R., are the well known initials of Samuel Rowlands, who appears to have been a Welshman, from his love of Triads, and from the dedications found in this the rarest of his works, and those described by Mr. Collier in his Catalogue of the Bridgewater House Collection. In the same volume is comprised a tract by Greene, with a copy of which Mr. Dyce could never meet, entitled The Royal Exchange, printed in 1590.
T. JONES.