Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/366

 352 SOME ROGUERIES OF Plutarche (gentell reader) abryged and for thy most profyt, deuyded into chapters.' The abridgement promises to be exceedingly slight, for as one reads from page to page, not a sentence is omitted or condensed, though many appear in strange form. But suddenly, in the fifth chapter, 1 the reader feels a more than commonly violent jolt. If he is following with the original, he fumbles the pages for a time, to perceive at length that a leap has been made (125 E med. to 130 F of the Greek), and that with a few other shorter omissions the translation goes on continuously to the end. The ' abrygement ' is achieved by simply slashing out a third of the original, without even making the sentences complete at either end of the longest excision. But, one asks himself, may not an accident have happened? May not some pages have been lost in four hundred years ? In the British Museum copy the catchword at the bottom of fol. b iv verso is c thou,' and the first word of the next page is c Socrates.' Could a printer have negle<5ted to observe this discrepancy ? The signatures are com- plete and in order (A-D, in fours), and the copy in the University Library at Cambridge is likewise complete and contains the same error. In the Bodleian copy, of another and a later edition, 2 the 1 Between fol. b iv verso and c i recto. 2 Not in Mr. Plomer's list. [Title] 4 The gouernaue/ce of good helthe, by the moste / excellent phylosopher Plutarche, / the most eloquent Erasmus / beynge interpretoure.' / [Design.] H Thou wylt repent that this / came not sooner to thy hande. / [Sig.] a. i. / [Colophon.] 11 Imprynted by me / Robert Wyer. / U Cum priuilegio regali. / ad imprimendum solum. [8 Q in 4$. A-D.]