SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
447
BusheU,and are to be solde by Jeffrey Charlton, at his Shop, at the North Doore of Paules. Small 4to.
The contents are tales, with poetry intermixed. The tales are related by an ant to a nightingale to save her life, the ant having crept up a tree, and got within reach of the nightingale's beak. The author thus introduces his book
TO THE READER.
Shall I tell you what, reader? but first I should call you gentle, curteous, and wise, but tis no matter, theyre but foolish words of course, and better left out than printed ; for if you be so, you need not be called so ; and if you be not so, then were lawe against me for calling you out of your names; by John of Powles church yard I sweare, and that oath will be taken at any haberdashers, I never wisht this bookc better fortune than to fall into the hands of a true spelling printer, and an honest stitch- ing bookseller ; and if honestie could be solde by the bushell, like oysters, I had rather have one bushell of honestie than three of monie.
Why I call these Father Hubbard's TaUa, is not to have them called in againe, as the tales of Mother Hubbard; the worlde would shewe little judgment in that yfaith, and I should say then plena ttiUtorum omnia ; for I entreat here neither of rugged beares nor apes ; no, nor the lamentable downefal of the olde wires platters, I deale with no such mettall. What is mirth in mee is harmlesse as the Quarter Jack in Powles,* they are up with their elbowes foure times an houre, and yet misuse no creature living. The verie bitterest in me, is but a physical frost, that nips the wicked blood a little, and so makes the whole bodie the more wholesomer, and none can justly except at me, but some riotous vaunt- ing Kit, or some gentleman swallowing itfiii Kin,-\ then to condemn these tales following, because Father Hubbard tells them in the small syze of an ant, is even as much as if these two wordes God and Divil were printed both iu one line ; to skip it over, and say that line were naught, because the Divil were in it; Sat Sapienti, and I hope there be many wise men in all the twelve companies.^
Yours if you reade without
Spelling or backing T. M.
- It may be prestuned from this passa^, that fonnerly
the quarters were struck at St. Paul's church dock by the flsores of men, as they were in the old church of St. Duu- etau's, Fleet-strcet.
t The diminution of Mary.— Shakspeare'sroHatonut.
The kitchin Malkin pins Her richest lockram 'bout her reecby neck. Some readers may require to be informed that lockram means some sort of coarse lloeo : reechy means greasy. See Pericla Prince of Tyre.
None would look on her, But cast their gazes on Marina's face ; Whilst ours was blurted at, and held a Sfalkin Not worth the time of day. Act IV. Sc. 4,
That is a mean wretch, not worth saluting with good day to yon.
t Originally the chartered city companies were only twelve ui number.
1604. King James VI. empowered the town council of Edinburgh to make such acts, statutes, and ordinances, for the good government of the town as they should deem expedient ; and they exercised their jurisdiction in a manner that would not disgrace a court of star chamber. Printers were prohibited by them from printing unlicenced books or pamphlets, under the penalty of losing the freedom of the city, and being otherwise fined and jmnithed at the will of the maffittralet."
1604. A Japanese Vocabulary was printed in the Jesuit's college, at Nangasaquy,* a seaport of Japan, on the west coast of the island of Ximo. A copy of this vocabulary was sold in the collection of M. Langles, of Paris, in 1825, for six hundred and forty francs ; as also another edition, printed at the same place, in the pie- ceding year, for six hundred and thirty-nine francs. Both volumes were of a small 4to. size. The Jesuits had established a press at this place, in 1693. A copy is in the Bodleian.
A Jesuit named Nicholas Trigault, who made Nan-idng his residence for some time, about the year 1620, and printed a Chinese Vocabulary^ in three volumes, which Sotuellus describes to be azctuum in Sinis, probably at this place.
1605, April 5. Died, John Stowe, the cele- brated historian, who devoted his life and ex- hausted his patrimony in the study of English antiquities :| he travelled on foot throughout the kingdom, inspecting all the monuments of an- tiquity, and rescuing what he could from the dispersed libraries of the monasteries. His stu- pendous collection in his hand-writing still exists, to provoke the feeble industry of literary loiterers. He felt through life the enthusiasm of study: and seated in his monkish library, associating with the dead more than with the living, he was still a student of taste ; for Spencer, the poet, visited the library of Stowe,
- Between the years issi and i68i, one hundred and
twcnty-six Jesuits were employed in the missions to China. All the Information which the missionaries could acquire of the learning, the arts and sciences of China, they trans, mittcd to Europe. In 1619 was published, at Paris, Nourdla hettra ediflanta dee Uiuiotu ie la Chine et dee Indee orientalei. Paris, I8I9, 4 vols. l2mo.
t The honour of piving to Europe \hefirtt printed Dic- tionary of the Chinese language, was by M de Guignes, under the auspices of Napoleon Bonaparte, with the fol- lowing title. DictioKnaire chinoiM, /rttmcaia, et Latin, pubtie d'aprea Fordre de sa Mt^etle PEmnerew et Roi, Napoleon te Grand. Paris, 1813. 1 vol. foL The more effectually to carry this work into execution, a grant of money was given fh>m the imperial treasury.
t A summarle of Engtyghe chroniclee. conieyning the true accompt of yeree, wherein every kyng of thit retUme of England began theyr reygne, how long they reigned, and what notable thyngee hath bene doone durynge theyi' reygnes. Wyth alto the names and yearee of ail the bay- lyjfet, cuttot, maiors, and theriffet of the citie of London, tent the conquettei diligently collected by John Stow, eitt- ten of London, in theyere ofemr horde Ood IS63. Wher. vnio it added a table in the end, conteynyng all theprincipall matters of this booke. Perused and allowed aecordyng to the queenea nu^jesties iniunctions, ]3mo. 1565.
Amonf]^ the catalogue of such unlawful books, as were found in the study of John Stow, of London, February 24, 1588, No. zvil. In Strype's life of bishop Orindal, yon wUl find this book in M.S. 1563. So that Ames con- cluded this the first edition of It, which was afterwards printed almost annually as almanacks.
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