Some curious typographical errors are also found in my edition. In the Catechism the word king is substituted for queen. In the third petition in the Litany for the Queen, we have "That it may please thee to be hys defendour, and gevinge hym," &c.; yet in the previous clauses the pronoun is correctly used. It would seem that the printer had the Primer of 1545 or 1546 before him, and that in these cases he followed his copy without making the necessary alterations.
Such are the more remarkable differences between my edition and that of 1559.
There is a Primer of this reign in the Bodleian, quite different from mine and that of 1559. In this the Prayers for the Dead are expunged, and the character of the book is altogether dissimilar. Two copies of this book exist in the Bodleian, which have been usually regarded as different editions. From a careful examination, however, I have ascertained that they are the same edition. One copy has the title, with the date 1566 on the woodcut border; the other wants the title, but has the colophon, bearing the date 1575. The latter is the true date of the book, and the date on the title is merely that of some other book, for which the compartment had been used in 1566. Such variations are common with early books. I have several volumes bearing an earlier date on the title than in the colophon. Thus, the first edition of Sir Thomas Elyot's Castle of Health has 1534 on the title, and 1539 in the colophon. The latter was the true date. It may be remarked that the two books in the Bodleian of 1575 will together make up a perfect copy.
Some of your correspondents may be able to mention another copy of the edition which I possess. I am very anxious to discover another.
Thomas Lathbury.
Bristol.
Minor Notes.
Objective and Subjective.—I tried, a little while ago, to show in your pages that this antithesis, though not a good pair of terms, is intelligible, and justified by good English usage. But I must allow that the writers who use these terms, do all that is possible to put those who justify them in the wrong. In a French work at least, recently published, I find what appears to me a curious application of the corresponding words in that language. M. Auguste Comte, in the preface to the third volume of his Système de Politique Positive, speaks of some of his admirers who had by their "cotisations," or contributions, supported him while he was writing the work; and he particularly celebrates one of them, Mr. Wallace, an American, adding:
"Devenu jusqu'ici le principal de mes souscripteurs, Wallace a perpétué subjectivement son patronage objectif, en me leguant une annuité de cinq cent francs."