Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/368

 354 SOME ROGUERIES OF little further back in the essay so as to catch up a sentence with a reference in it to c superfluyte.' The second omission (1352 to 1370 of the Greek text) is in the midst of a page, and occurs between complete sentences. Plainly these cuts must have been made from a complete translation, for it would have been im- possible for a translator to break off in one incom- plete sentence and to begin again in another ; and equally impossible for the later corrector to have added the new matter in the Bodleian copy unless he had had it before him. Moreover, this transla- tion must have been printed, for a printer setting up from manuscript would have had no more reason than a writer for leaving a sentence un- finished ; and if he had done so he would not have mistaken his catchword. Following the custom of the day in reprinting books of the same format, it would have been easy for the compositor to take a c thou ' from the page before him, and to skip without observing the discrepancy, perhaps upon a hasty order from the foreman to cut out so many leaves. In fine, there was a crude English transla- tion of Erasmus's version of Plutarch's ' De tuenda Sanitate,' printed before Wyer published 'The Gouernaunce of Good Helthe,' and this translation Wyer ' abridged ' for his public in the rough and ready fashion indicated. Even under the lax moral code governing the book-publishing of that time, to call a Plutarch so mangled an abridgement has a certain impudence not without charm. Now a publisher does not do such things once. Indeed, for a publisher seeking catchpenny cheapness the