Relics of Literature,

We, for their knowledge, men inspir'd adore;

Not for those truths they hide, but those they show;
And vulgar reason finds, that none knows more
Than that which he can make another know.

Sir W. Davenant.

THE FIRST ENGLISH CATALOGUE.

THE first digested list of publications in the English language was compiled by Andrew Maunsell, a bookseller of ability and eminence, who lived in Lothbury towards the close of the sixteenth century, Hearne calls this catalogue “a very scarce, and yet a very useful book;" and it is curious on many accounts, particularly as it affords the titles of many works, and records the names of various authors, long since lost or forgotten. The work is dedicated "To the Queene's most sacred Maiestie;" to " The Reverend Divines, and Louers of Diuine Bookes ;" and to" The Worshipfull the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Companie of Stationers, and to all other Printers and Bookesellers in generall." The following is the title:

"The first Part of the Catalogue of English Printed Bookes: which concerneth such matters of diuinitie as have bin either written in our owne tongue, or translated out of anie other language and haue bin published to the glory of God, and edification of the Church of Christ in England. Gathered into alphabet, and such method as it is, by Andrew Maunsell, bookseller. Unumquodque propter quid. London: printed by John Windel, for Andrew Maunsell, dwelling in Lothburie, 1595." Folio, pp. 123; dedication, pp. 6; with the device of a pelican and its offspring rising from the flames, round which is this legend: "Pro Lege, Rege, et Grege: Love kepyth the Lawe, obeyeth the kynge, and is good to the Commonwelthe."

The following extract from the "Dedication to the Printers and Booksellers" will not only furnish an insight into the plan of publication, but is also applicable to the compilation of catalogues in general.

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seeing (also) many singular bookes, not only of diuinitie, but of other excellent arts, after the first impression, so spent and gone, that they lie euen as it were buried in some few studies;--I.haue thought good in my poor estate to vndertake this most tiresome businesse, hoping the Lord will send a blessing vron my labours taken in my vocation; thinking it as necessarie for the bookeseller (considering the number and nature of them) to haue a catalogue of our English bookes, as the apothecarie his Dispensatorium, or the schoolemaster his Dictionarie.

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By meanes of which my poore trauails, I shall draw to your memories bookes that you could not remember; and shew to the learned such bookes as they would not thinke were in our owne tongue; which I haue not sleighted vp the next way, but haue to my great paines drawn the writers of any special argument together, not following the order of the learned men that haue written Latine catalogues, Gesner, Simler, and our countriman, John Bale. They make their alphabet by the christian name, I by the sirname they mingle diuinitie, law, phisicke, &c. together; I set diuinitie by itselfe: they set downe printed and not printed, I onely printed. Concerning the bookes which are without authors' names, called Anonymi, I haue placed them either vpon the titles they bee entituled by, or else vpon the matter they entreate of, and sometimes vpon both, for the easier finding of them.

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:

Concerning the bookes that be translated, I haue observed, (if the translator doe set his name) the author, the matter, the translator, the printer, (or for whome it is printed) the yeere and the volume. For example, Lambert Danæus, his treatise of Antichrist, translated by John Swan, printed for John Potter and Thomas Gubbin, 1589, in 4. The author's sirname, which is Danaus; the matter of the booke, which is Antichrist; the translator's sirname, which is Swan; are, or should be, in Italica letters, and none other, because they are the alphabetical names obserued in this booke: turne to which of these three names you will, and they will direct you to the booke.

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I shall not neede to make the like examplesthey are plaine inough by one example.

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"A. MAUNSELL."

In the same year in which this catalogue was printed, Maunsell published a second part, which concerneth the sciences mathematicall, as arithmetick, geometrie, astronomie, astrologie, musick, the art of warre and navigation; and also of physicks and surgerie." To this part, as to the first, he has prefixed three dedications. The first was to the memorable

Earl of Essex, whose arms, beautifully cut in wood, ornament the back of the title He is styled, as he truly was, "a most honourable patrone of learned men and theyr works." The second dedication is to "The Professors of the Sciences Mathematicall, and of Physicke and Surgery;" and the third is, as before, to the "Čompanie of Stationers, Printers, &c." In this last dedication, he says:

Hauing shewed you in my former part of the use of my tables, I will onely in thys shew you and the curteous readers, that I haue set the writers of arithmetick, musick, navigation, and warre together, vsing the playnest way I could deuise.

"Now it resteth, that I should proceede to the thirde and last part, which is of humanity, wherein I shall haue occasion to shew, what we haue in our owne tongue, of gramer, logick, rethoricke, lawe, historie, poetrie, policie, etc. which will, for the most part, conceiue matters of delight and pleasure, wherein I haue already laboured as in the rest; but finding it so troublesome to get sight of bookes, and so tedious to digest into any good methode, I haue thought good first to publish the two more necessarie parts, which, if I perceave to be well liked of, will whet me on to proceed in the rest (as God shall make me able) with better courage."

Although we can scarcely doubt that Maunsell's Catalogue was well liked of," yet it seems that he did not meet with sufficient encouragement; for certain it is, that the third part, which would doubtless have been the most interesting, never made its appearance.

EARLIEST ENGLISH MEDICAL WORK.

THE earliest Medical work written in English, is supposed by Fuller to have been Andrew Borde's " Breviarie of Health," which was published in 1547. It must yield, however, in its pretensions to antiquity, to a much older work, the Breviary of Practice, by Bartholomew Glanville, a manuscript of which is preserved in the Harleian collection. The one title, indeed, appears to have been an imitation of the other. The " Breviarie of Health" has a prologue addressed to physicians, which begins thus: Egregious doctors, and masters of the eximious and arcane science of physick, of your urbanity exaspeperate not yourselves against me for making this little

volume."

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