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JOHN CORDY BURROWS, Esq..

Of 62, Old Steine, Brighton, in the County of Sussex ;

J.P., F.R.S. Eng. 1852, M. 1836; L.S.A. 1835 ( Guy's and St. Thomas's) ; Cons. Surg. Brighton Hospital for Sick Children; Surg. 1st Brig.

Sussex V. Artillery; Past Pres. S. E. Br. Brit. Med.

Assoc. and Brighton and Sussex Med. Chir. Soc.,

PREFACE.

N presenting the second volume of "THE OLD BOOK COLLECTOR'S MISCELLANY" to his readers, the Editor has to congratulate himself on the general success which has attended the publication. The object of which is to give in a well-printed and inexpensive form "READABLE REPRINTS" of the works of such authors which best illustrate the History, Literature, Manners, Customs, and Biography of the English Nation during the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries.

In executing this task, the Editor has made his selection as varied as possible from a desire to meet the views and tastes of his numerous correspondents and subscribers. Of the twenty pieces contained in the present volume, six are from the Works of John Taylor, the Water-poet-" A fellow of infinite jest"-and whose compositions are not less remarkable for their quaintness and humour, than for the rarity which has accrued to them in some measure from undeserved neglect. His pieces in prose'and verse are innumerable. It is proposed

to make a further selection from his works in the succeeding numbers of our Miscellany.

The original of the poem of "How the Good Wife taught her Daughter" is in MS. formerly belonging to Dr. Adam Clarke, afterwards in the possession of C. W. Loscombe, Esq., of Pickwick House, Corsham, Wilts. The MS. which contains. it is a thickish quarto written throughout on vellum in various hands of the fifteeth century, and besides the poem in question, includes four other pieces. "It seems," says Sir F. Madden, who in 1838 printed off a few copies from the original "For presents only," from one of which we make our reprint, "to have been composed in imitation of the moral piece printed by Ritson entitled "How the Wise Man taught his Son" and may be ascribed to the same period, the reign of Henry VI."

For our modernized version we have had the able assistance of Dr. R. Morris, of King's College, who volunteered to correct the proof

sheets of the same, and for which our best thanks are due and are hereby given.