STEPHEN AUSTIN, PRINTER, HERTFORD.
[FOOTNOTES]
[1.] Wood’s Fasti Oxonienses, by Bliss, I., 217.
[2.] M’Crie’s Life of Melville, vol. ii., p. 509.
[3.] “An Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionarie, containing four sundrie tongues, namelie, English, Latine, Greeke and French ... by Jo. Baret. London, 1580.” Folio. An edition was published in 1573, with three languages only, the Greek not being included.
[4.] “De recta et emendata Linguæ Anglicæ Scriptione Dialogus. Lutetiæ, 1568.” 4to.
[5.] It will be here as well to mention that as the punctuation in the MS. is extremely unsystematic, it has been dispensed with whenever the meaning was confused by it.
[6.] “A vast mass of our early literature is still unprinted, and much that has been printed has, as the late Herbert Coleridge remarked, ‘been brought out by Printing Clubs of exclusive constitution, or for private circulation only, and might, for all that the public in general is the better for them, just as well have remained in manuscript, being, of course, utterly unprocurable, except in great libraries, and not always there.’ It is well known that the Hon. G. P. Marsh, the author of ‘The Origin and History of the English Language,’ could not procure for use in his work a copy of ‘Havelok’ for love or money; and the usual catalogue-price of ‘William and the Werwolf,’ or ‘The Early English Gesta Romanorum,’ etc., etc., is six guineas, when the book should be obtainable for less than a pound. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Percy, Camden, and other Societies and Printing Clubs, more than half our early printed literature—including the Romances relating to our national hero, Arthur—is still inaccessible to the student of moderate means; and it is a scandal that this state of things should be allowed to continue.... Those who would raise any objection to these re-editions—as a few have raised them—are asked to consider the absurdity and injustice of debarring a large number of readers from the enjoyment of an old author, because a living editor has once printed his works, when the feeling of the editor himself is well expressed in the words of one of the class, ‘You are heartily welcome to all I have ever done. I should rejoice to see my books in the hands of a hundred, where they are now on the shelves of one.’”—Extract from the first Prospectus.