Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/365

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ROBERT WYER. 351 help him through the version. He gives his style a very inappropriate colloquial turn, and makes extraordinary blunders. A man out walking with a few companions is asked to supper : ' Cum paucis inambulantem quidam vocarat ad coenam/ In the translation he becomes host instead of guest : l ' which [i.e. and he] dcsyred a man whom he found walkyng with smale cOpany to his supper/ Phryne the harlot, who declared with no little point that many people bought filth out of ostenta- tion (' . . . dixerit : a multis fecem emi propter gloriam/), is made to have spoken this of her- self: 2 'I ["emi "taken fora perfect] have bought much [" a multis ! "] fylth and all for vayne glory/ It was she, of course, who sold the filth. The direction is given to keep the hands and feet warm, because permitting the extremities to be cold drives the natural heat inwards, and induces a feverish habit of body : ' Aiebat . . . rursus extremarum corporis partium frigiditatem, dum calorem ad interiora cogit, ceu familiaritatem quandam et assuetudinem febris inducere/ In the English effe6l and cause change places : 3 * An ague or feuer causeth vtter partes of the body customably to be cold whe he cOstrayneth heate all to fle inwardly/ Did Wyer know how to economize in literary workmen as well as in paper and ink ? But the most interesting aspeft of the book is the way in which the printer carries out his promise of offering an abridgement of Plutarch in it; 4 'Here haste thou the moste excellente 1 fol. b ii recto. 2 fol. b iv recto. 3 fol. iv verso.

  • fol. a i verso.