Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/369

ROBERT WYER. 355 outrageous ' cutting ' of books is to this day a recognized pradtice. It would be part of the system of a house like Wyer's. The obje<5t of the violence done is to provide room for medical prescriptions which occupy the last pages of the book. Plutarch's name would give to the book tone and standing, which would be transferred to the ' Eleftuaryes to auoyde Coloure,' and the medicines c to purge colde and hot humours ' ; but it was c something to take ' which Wyer's public wanted not a dissertation on hygiene. To give so much to Plutarch and so little to medicine was obviously not to make an economical division of the space ; a much briefer extract from the essay would suffice for advertising purposes and leave room for the really important part of the book. Wyer's ' Praftica Plutarche ' ' contains three pages clipped out of the earlier translation. The first sentence is recast so as to look reasonable: c ln this my retreat frende Plutarche gyueth me counsell to haue alwey the handes warme.' From that point forward the errors and nonsense of the former book are faith- fully reproduced, with an added absurdity. In the ' Gouernaunce ' the speeches of an adversary of Plutarch are reported ; in the ' Praftica ' the ' abridgement ' is carried so far as to omit all refer- ence to interlocutors, and Plutarch is made to con- tradidl himself flatly and in the absurdest fashion. The room gained by cutting the Plutarch to three pages is utilized by printing more prescriptions drawn from the large stock which Wyer had on 1 No. 84 in Mr. Plomer's list.