Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/435

HEBREW LEXICON. 421 (2) Alabaster may have asked Thorndike in 1632 to contribute some 'observations circa linguam Hebream et Grecam,' while being himself responsible for the main body of the Epitome. The title as given is quite capable of this interpre- tation. The entries in the Stationers' Registers are notoriously haphazard, and the omission of the names of both Schindler and Alabaster is quite in accordance with the general standard of inaccuracy. Thorndike having apparently failed to get his contribution ready to time, that portion of the entry would naturally be omitted when the work came to be published. Jones may then be sup- posed to have issued a few copies with the regis- tered title in order to preserve his copyright, and Thorndike must have objected to the spelling ' Thornidicke,' and have induced Jones to alter the spelling to that which he uses for his own Latin epitaph viz., ' Thornedike.' I confess, however, that it requires some courage to argue that Thorn- dike demanded the re-spelling of his name on copies of a bogus issue of a work in which he had in reality no share. (3) Alabaster, who was nearly seventy years of age at this time, may have employed Thorndike, then a young Cambridge Fellow of thirty-three, to undertake the drudgery of compiling the Epitome, while he himself was engaged upon the 'Spira- culum.' The expression ' imprimendum curavi ' in Alabaster's essay does not preclude this. In this case Thorndike was apparently content to hide his light under a bushel when the book was first pub- lished as an appendix to the ' Spiraculum,' and