Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 | Page 8

the wife's prudential promise, "to haue et to holde for thys day." (2.) Are there any vellum leaves in any copy in England of the folio impression very beautifully printed en rouge et noir "in alma Parisiorum academia," die x. Kal. April, 1510?
(46.) On the 11th of last month (Jan.) somebody advertised in "NOTES AND QUERIES" for Foxes and Firebrands. In these days of trouble and rebuke, when (if we may judge from a recent article savouring of Neal's second volume) it seems to be expected that English gentlemen will, in a Magazine that bears their name, be pleased with a réchauffé of democratic obloquy upon the character of the great reformer of their church, and will look with favour upon Canterburies Doome, would it not be desirable that Robert Ware's (and Nalson's) curious and important work should be republished? If a reprint of it were to be undertaken, I would direct attention to a copy in my possession of "The Third and Last Part," Lond. 1689, which has many alterations marked in MS. for a new edition, and which exhibits the autograph of Henry Ware.
(47.) Was COHAUSEN the composer of "Clericus Deperrucatus; sive, in fictitiis Clericorum Comis moderni seculi ostensa et explosa Vanitas: Cum Figuris: Autore ANNOEO RHISENNO VECCHIO, Doctore Romano-Catholico," printed at Amsterdam, and inscribed to Pope Benedict XIII.? One of the well-finished copperplates, page 12., represents "Monsieur l'Abbé prenant du Tabac."
(48.) Where can a copy of the earliest edition of the Testamentum XII. Patriarcharum be found? for if one had been easily obtainable, Grabe, Cave, Oudin, and Wharton (Ang. Sac. ii. 345.) would not have treated the third impression as the first; and let it be noted by the way that "Clerico Elichero" in Wharton must be a mistake for "Clerico Nicolao." Moreover, how did the excellent Fabricius (Bibl. med. et inf. Latin., and also Cod. Pseudepig. V. T., i. 758.) happen to connect Menradus Moltherus with the editio princeps of 1483? It is certain that this writer's letter to Secerius, accompanying a transcript of Bishop Grossetête's version, which immediately came forth at Haguenau, was concluded "postridie Non. Januar. M.D.XXXII."
(49.) (1.) Who was the bibliopolist with whom originated the pernicious scheme of adapting newly printed title-pages to books which had had a previous existence? Sometimes the deception may be discerned even at a glance: for example, without the loss of many seconds, and by the aspect of a single letter, (the long s,) we can perceive the falsehood of the imprint, "Parisiis, apud Paul Mellier, 1842," together with "S.-Clodoaldi, è typographeo Belin-Mandar," grafted upon tome i. {184} of the Benedictine edition of S. Gregory Nazianzen's works, which had been actually issued in 1778. Very frequently, however, the comparison of professedly different impressions requires, before they can be safely pronounced to be identical, the protracted scrutiny of a practised eye. An inattentive observer could not be conscious that the works of Sir James Ware, translated and improved by Harris, and apparently the progeny of the year 1764, (the only edition, and that but a spurious one, recorded in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica,) have been skilfully tampered with, and should be justly restored--the first volume to 1739, the second to 1745.
(2.) We must admit that a bookseller gifted with mature sapience will very rarely, or never, be such an amateur in expensive methods of bamboozling, as to prefer having recourse to the title-page expedient, if he could flatter himself that his purpose would be likely to be effected simply by doctoring the date; and thus a question springs up, akin to the former one, How great is the antiquity of this timeserving device? At this moment, trusting only to memory, I am not able to adduce an instance of the depravation anterior to the year 1606, when Dr. James's Bellum Papale was put forth in London as a new book, though in reality there was no novelty connected with it, except that the last 0 in 1600 (the authentic date) had been compelled by penmanship to cease to be a dead letter, and to germinate into a 6.
(3.) If neither the judicious naturalisation of a title-page, nor the dexterous corruption of the year in which a work was honestly produced, should avail to eliminate "the stock in hand," res ad Triarios rediit--there is but one contrivance left. This is, to give to the ill-fated hoard another name; in the hope that a proverb properly belonging to a rose may be superabundantly verified in the case of an old book. What Anglo-Saxon scholar has not studied "Divers Ancient Monuments," revived in 1638? and yet perhaps scarcely any one is aware that the appellation is entirely deceptive, and that no such collection was printed at that period. The inestimable remains of ?lfric, edited by L'Isle in 1623, and then entitled, "A Saxon