Part 6

ADVERTISEMENT.

The present edition of Bishop Earle's Characters was undertaken from an idea that they were well worthy of republication, and that the present period, when the productions of our early English writers are sought after with an avidity hitherto unexampled, would be the most favourable for their appearance.

The text has been taken from the edition of 1732, collated with the first impression in 1628. The variations from the latter are thus distinguished:--those words or passages which have been added since the first edition are contained between brackets, [and printed in the common type]; those which have received some alteration, are printed in italic, and the passages, as they stand in the first edition, are always given in a note.

For the Notes, Appendix, and Index, the editor is entirely answerable, and although he is fully aware that many superfluities will be censured, many omissions discovered, and many errors pointed out, he hopes that the merits of the original author will, in a great measure, compensate for the false judgment or neglect of his reviver.

January 30, 1811.

THE PREFACE

This little book had six editions between 1628 and 1633, without any author's name to recommend it: I have heard of an eighth in 1664. From that of 33 this present edition is reprinted, without altering any thing but the plain errors of the press, and the old pointing and spelling in some places.

The language is generally easy, and proves our English tongue not to be so very changeable as is commonly supposed; nay, sometimes the phrase seems a little obscure, more by the mistakes of the printer than the distance of time. Here and there we meet with a broad expression, and some characters are far below others; nor is it to be expected that so great a variety of portraits should all be drawn with equal excellence, though there are scarce any without some masterly touches. The change of fashions unavoidably casts a shade upon a few places, yet even those contain an exact picture of the age wherein they were written, as the rest does of mankind in general: for reflections founded upon nature will be just in the main, as long as men are men, though the particular instances of vice and folly may be diversified. Paul's Walk is now no more, but then good company adjourn to coffee-houses, and, at the reasonable fine of two or three pence, throw away as much of their precious time as they find troublesome.

Perhaps these valuable essays may be as acceptable to the public now as they were at first; both for the entertainment of those who are already experienced in the ways of mankind, and for the information of others who would know the world the best way, that is--without trying it.

FOOTNOTES:

London: Printed by E. Say, Anno Domini M.DCC.XXXII.

A short account of Earle, taken from the Athenæ Oxonienses is here omitted.

ADVERTISEMENT

As this entertaining little book is become rather scarce, and is replete with so much good sense and genuine humour, which, though in part adapted to the times when it first appeared, seems, on the whole, by no means inapplicable to any æra of mankind, the editor conceives that there needs little apology for the republication. A farther inducement is, his having, from very good authority, lately discovered that these Characters (hitherto known only under the title of Blount's), were actually drawn by the able pencil of JOHN EARLE, who was formerly bishop of Sarum, having been translated to that see from Worcester, A.D. 1663, and died at Oxford, 1665.

Isaac Walton, in his Life of Hooker, delineates the character of the said venerable prelate.

It appears from Antony Wood's Athen. Oxon. under the Life of Bishop Earle, that this book was first of all published at London in 1628, under the name of "Edward Blount."

FOOTNOTES:

"Microcosmography; or, a Piece of the World characterized; in Essays and Characters. London, printed A.D. 1650. Salisbury, Reprinted and sold by E. Easton, 1786. Sold also by G. and T. Wilkie, St. Paul's Church-yard, London."

I regret extremely that I am unable to put the reader in possession of this very acute discoverer's name.

This mistake originated with Langbaine, who, in his account of Lilly, calls Blount "a gentleman who has made himself known to the world by the several pieces of his own writing, (as Horæ Subsecivæ, his Microcosmography, &c.") Dramatic Poets, 8vo, 1691, p. 327.

EDITIONS OF "MICROCOSMOGRAPHY."

The first edition (of which the Bodleian possesses a copy, 8vo. P. 154. Theol.) was printed with the following title: "Microcosmographie: or, a Peece of the World discovered; In Essayes and Characters. Newly composed for the Northerne parts of this Kingdome. At London. Printed by W. S. for Ed. Blount, 1628." This contains only fifty-four characters, which in the present edition are placed first. I am unable to speak of any subsequent copy, till one in the following year, (1629), printed for Robert Allot, and called in the title "The first edition much enlarged." This, as Mr. Henry Ellis kindly informs me, from a copy in the British Museum, possesses seventy-six characters. The sixth was printed for Allot, in 1633, (Bodl. Mar. 441,) and has seventy-eight, the additional ones being "a herald," and "a suspicious, or jealous man." The seventh appeared in 1638, for Andrew Crooke, agreeing precisely with the sixth; and in 1650 the eighth. A copy of the latter is in the curious library of Mr. Hill, and, as Mr. Park acquaints me, is without any specific edition numbered in the title. I omit that noticed by the editor of 1732, as printed in 1664, for if such a volume did exist, which I much doubt, it was nothing more than a copy of the eighth with a new title-page. In 1732 appeared the ninth, which was a reprint of the sixth, executed with care and judgment. I have endeavoured in vain to discover to whom we are indebted for this republication of bishop Earle's curious volume, but it is probable that the person who undertook it, found so little encouragement in his attempt to revive a taste for the productions of our early writers, that he suffered his name to remain unknown. Certain it is that the impression, probably not a large one, did not sell speedily, as I have seen a copy, bearing date 1740, under the name of "The World display'd: or several Essays; consisting of the various Characters and Passions of its principal Inhabitants," &c. London, printed for C. Ward, and R. Chandler. The edition printed at Salisbury, in 1786, (which has only seventy-four characters,) with that now offered to the public, close the list.

FOOTNOTES:

Having never seen or been able to hear of any copy of the second, third, or fourth editions, I am unable to point out when the additional characters first appeared.

Robert Allot, better known as the editor of England's Parnassus, appears to have succeeded Blount in several of his copy-rights, among others, in that of Shakspeare, as the second edition (1632) was printed for him.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Preface to the Reprint of 1897 vii.