Lintot is in the way of business, and sells off his ; but mine lie upon hand, so that I am like to be a great sufferer. By our articles we are not to sell a copy under the subscription price, which is, large paper fifty shillings, small paper thirty shillings, in sheets: the book is adorned with copper plates before each tale. If any friend of yours wants such a book, I can supply him at London: but by no means I would have you importunate with any person on my account.

LETTER CXLVIII.

T. HEARNE to Dr. R. RAWLINSON.

Urry's Edition of Chaucer.-Re-printing Books in the Old English Character, or Black Letter.

DEAR SIR,

I THANK YOU for the large parcel of books I received from you on Saturday last, the 15th inst. Several of them are old Chaucer's, such as what you mentioned some time since. The more I look upon such old black-lettered editions, the more I wish that the late edition had been printed in the black letter, which was what my friend Mr. Urry intirely designed, as I have often heard him say, tho' the managers after

wards, for frivolous reasons, acted contrary to it. Curious men begin to esteem the old editions more than the new one, partly upon account of the letter, and partly upon account of the change that hath been made in the new edition, without giving the various lections, which would have been of great satisfaction to critical men. John Stowe was an honest man, and knowing in these affairs, and would never have taken such a liberty, and I have reason to think Mr. Urry would (what I used often to tell him to do) have accounted for the alterations with a particular nicety, had he lived to have printed the book himself.

March 18, 1734.

*

LETTER CXLIX.

Mr. BAKER to Mr. HEARNE.

YOUR speaking of old editions, puts me in mind of a discovery made by Mr. Palmer in his History of Printing, Append. Pag. 299, 300, of a book printed by Guttenburg, an. 1458, viz. St. Gregories Dialogues, with this Colophon:

Explicit liber quartus
Dialogoru Gregorii.

Then follows in red letters;

Presens hoc opus factum est per Johan.
Guttenburgium apud Argentinam,

Anno Millesimo CCCCLVIII.

And yet after all, I am told, it is a mistake,† and that mistake corrected in a separate sheet, or

*The word explicit, generally used at the end of MSS. and early printed books, is a contraction of explicitus. The ancient books were nothing but rolls of parchment, (hence the Latin word Volumen, and our Volume) which were unfolded by the reader in his progress through them. When they were quite unfolded, they were of course finished; and the word explicitus, which properly conveys the former sense, was afterwards used in the latter, when the books assumed a different form, to signify that they were finished or ended.

† In a subsequent letter, dated Nov. 12, 1734, he says, * * * I think I once told you of a discovery made by Mr. Palmer, of a book printed by Guttenburgh. I have since received the half sheet, shewing it to be a mistake or rather a cheat. They have long made a trade of counterfeiting medals, and now are beginning with prints, at least with the Colophons.

For

The worthy Mr. Hearne

at Edmund-Hall

Oxford.

half-sheet, which I have not yet met with. Have you, Sir, seen or heard of it? If it be genuine, it is the only book [that] yet appears with the name of Guttenburg. If it be a mistake, it is a very strange one, especially from a printer.

Cambridge, Aug. ult. 1734.

LETTER CL.

Mr. BROME to Mr. RAWLINS.

On the Vicar of Bray.

June 14, 1735.

I HAVE had a long

chase after the Vicar of Bray, on whom the proverb. Mr. Hearne, tho' born in that neighbourhood, and should have mentioned him, Leland, Itin. vol. v. p. 114, knew not who he was, but in his last letter desired me if I found him out to let him know it. Dr. Fuller, in his Worthies, and Mr. Ray from him, takes no notice of himin his Proverbs. I suppose neither knew his name. But I am informed it is Simon Aleyn or Allen, who was Vicar of Bray about 1540, and died 1588, so was Vicar of Bray near 50 years.*

* The writer of the well-known song of The Vicar of Bray,

You now partake of the sport, that has cost me some pains to take. And if the pursuit after such game seems mean, one Mr. Vernon followed a butter-fly nine miles before he could catch him. But this apology will take this turn; I excuse my folly by a greater folly in another.

LETTER CLI.

Mr. BAKER to THOMAS RAWLINS, Esq.

Death of T. Pearne.-Athenæ Cantab.

WORTHY SIR,

I HAVE the favour of your letter, and am to thank you for your account of the loss of our common friend,* and heartily condole with you upon that melancholy occasion, and for the common loss, not only to you and me, but more to the public. I often cautioned him against fatiguing himself too much, and over

has changed the date of the original story, applying it to the seventeenth century, and making the Vicar's versatility shew itself by the frequent variation of his political principles.

* T. Hearne, who died June 10th, 1735, aged 57 years, of a fever brought on by a violent cold. The inscription, written by himself, on his tomb-stone in the Church-yard of St. Peter's in the East, Oxford, is well-known.