dispose me to do every thing in my power; but your equity and candour, in judging of my capacity, will make proper allowances for the necessity I am under of recommending my own books. I will talk with our Booksellers about it, and let you know what they say. I wish you had told me what my friends think of my last Letter upon Warburton, and what you hear of him. July 15, 1738.”—“ Į am very sorry for your constant residence in Bedfordshire, because it deprives me of the pleasure of seeing you in my visits to Cambridge, which is now an easy day's journey for me. I presume you have seen it in the papers, that his Grace of Canterbury [Dr. Potter] has given me the vicarage of Ware, and Thundridge adjoining to it; which I was obliged in prudence to accept, though they add but little to my income, and put me to considerable expences. I was forced, in a little time, to lay out 70l. upon two old houses, and had no more than 207. allowed me for dilapidations. The house at Ware is very large, six rooms on a floor, two coach-houses and a stable that I can make little use of; about 300 feet of paling, between 5 and 6000 feet of tiling, and a large expensive garden, to be kept in constant repair, not an acre of glebe land, and I myself in a more expensive situation than when I was a curate in London.-After some time, I recovered the arrears of an augmentation, payable to the small living of Thundridge; but, then, my former living being a rectory, and I quitting it just before harvest, the loss of all the corn, and the dilapidations which I paid my successor, balanced that account.-His Grace is not willing that I should drop the Miscellany; and, in order to carry it on, I am forced to get more help than otherwise I should want at my livings, if I could be constantly there to do all the parochial duties; I must keep a lodging in town, and a horse always in the stable; besides unavoidable expences in going, backward and forward every week. All together the Miscellany will cost me at least 40l. a year; which is a charge that I cannot possibly support till I can get some addition to my

income.

first

you

income. You know, before the paper could be established, it brought me in debt to my printer [Mr. Richardson*] 140/. ninety of which is still unpaid. To encourage my present printer to under- ́ take and propagate it with industry, I insured to him all the profits that he could make it bring in, preserving to myself nothing but the power of conducting all the labour of supporting the design. To drop so good a design, and give the enemy such an occasion of triumph, I cannot bear the thoughts of; and therefore I am soliciting, amongst the friends of the paper, a half-yearly subscription, the payment to be made at the time of subscribing. You, my good friend, are quite out of this question, because you do handsomely already, and as much as can reasonably be expected; but, if would represent the case to some others, I should thank you. If I give up so much of my time and pains, which I could employ more profitably to myself, though not so usefully to the publick, those who are in better circumstances cannot think much of joining to support the expences it puts me There is a worthy Lord (Trevor) in your neighbourhood, who, if the case were justly represented to him, would readily do something. He has the Miscellany every week, and is a hearty friend to it. Now, the Archbishop having given a sanction to my character, I shall get something else; and as soon as I am made a little easier, as to my circumstances, I shall no longer desire any help, but at present I am terribly embarrassed; and the more by the great expence of coming into these livings." (No date.)-“ I suppose you saw my dying speech in the Miscellany, and are convinced, without a coroner's inquest, that I did not lay violent hands upon myself, though I died an untimely death. I am coming out with a pamphlet, but cannot afford to make presents. I never was so distressed as now. My last preferment has absolutely ruined me." No date. [1741.]

to.

No. VIII.

(Vol. I. p. 419.)

REMARKS ON STEPHENS'S THESAURUS.

"The old impressions of this great and valuable work, particularly that of Lions 1573, being exceeding scarce, the publick is highly obliged to those learned gentlemen who have furnished us with a new edition, larger and more accurate than any of the preceding ones. We have the more reason to glory in the success of this noble and magnicent undertaking, which does honour to our age and nation, as several attempts of this nature have been heretofore made, and unhappily miscarried; particularly by Charles and Henry Stephens, by our own celebrated countryman Milton, by the Society of Baliol college in Oxford, and by Dr. Kuster, the excellent Editor of Suidas and Aristophanes.

This stately performance, after a very eloquent Dedication to his present Majesty, is introduced by a large Epistolary Preface, inscribed to the most ingenious Dr. John Hollings; containing a distinct and exact Account of the most considerable Latin Dictionaries which have appeared since the restoration of Learning, together with some Memoirs of the Compilers of them. Our readers will be pleased to see them as they stand in succession, and observe their principal characters; and the rather, as this is a piece of literary history, which has hitherto lain almost altogether uncultivated.

The first book of this kind that is mentioned, is the "Catholicon *" of John Balbus, frequently

*Of this very curious book, see "The Origin of Printing," p.87.

styled

styled Joannes de Janua, or Januensis, from his country, being a Genoese. It was one of the first fruits of the press after the invention of the typographical art, being imprinted at Mentz in 1460. This original impression consisted of 372 leaves, without either signatures or numeration of the pages, neither of which were then in use. The character was rude in comparison of later types, but extremely polite if we consider the time of its appearance, in the very infancy of printing; when we have far greater cause to admire so vast and disproportioned a production of it, than to animadvert upon its imperfections. Each side was divided into two equal columns, either of which contained precisely sixty-six lines, with a margin and interval sufficiently spacious; paper large and strong, but otherwise not beautiful. The Author of this antient Lexicon bestowed many years in compiling of it, and finished it, as he tells us himself at the conclusion of his manuscript, on the nones of March 1286. He was a man well versed in the liberal arts and sciences; of the order of Preaching Friars, and remarkable for his extraordinary sanctity.

the

There cannot indeed a great deal be said in commendation of this work, nor must the erudition of it be placed in competition with those of a more modern date; but, with respect to the age it was wrote in, it has not merited the contempt which Erasmus and some others have thrown on it. It led the way to those which afterwards outran it; and it should be remembered in its favour, that invention is at once a more difficult and a nobler instance of genius than improvement. It was for a long while the sole fountain from whence the Schools derived their knowledge in the Latin tongue: so that it is not to be wondered at, if a great many of the Literati exercised themselves in enlarging and embellishing it, and succeeding Glossographers imagined they ought to be intirely submitted to, and even applauded, wherever they could alledge the authority of the Catholicon in behalf of their opinions. VOL. V.

N

The

The pious Collector of it shewed a peculiar regard to such words as occurred in the sacred Scriptures, or especially related to them, and was careful to the utmost of his ability to discover, and even exhaust, the sense of them; an example of this we have under INTERPRES, where he has not only denoted the general meaning of it, but illustrated it by a short history of the several translations of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew into Greek, and out of either into Latin. "First by the Seventy, next by Aquila, a third and fourth by Theodotion and Symmachus; a fifth that was anonymous, and called the Vulgar Interpretation; besides a sixth and a seventh that were found by Origen, the last of which was of the Psalms only; and both which with immense labour and diligence he collated with all the preceding The versions out of Greek into Latin were almost innumerable, as St. Augustin observes; for in the Western primitive Church, almost every man that got a Greek Bible into his hands, and was ever so little versed in that language, turned it into his own. St. Jerom, who was skilled in all the three tongues, was the only translator of the Scriptures from the Hebrew into the Latin immediately; his translation is very justly esteemed, not only for the elegance and perspicuity of it, but likewise for its strictness and fidelity."

ones.

Our Author was beholden to Papias for what he has said here in the explanation of this word; from whom, as well as Hugutius, he owns himself to have transcribed a great many articles.

All that I shall say farther of the Catholicon is, that although the edition of 1460 has neither Faustus's Colophon, nor the mark of a Calf's Horn in the paper, which Naudæus and some others have fancied to be a certain criterion for distinguishing the books which he printed, yet there is not the least reason to doubt its being the work of that incomparable artist. Nor is there any foundation for Trithemius's opinion, which the reputation of his great knowledge in antiquity has imposed on

many,