Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/73

Rh Braddyl by John Dunton—who, in spite of his egotism, was a pretty shrewd judge of human nature—it is clear either that the publisher was actuated by malicious motives in his attack on Braddyl, or that he had been wrongly informed as to the printer of the pirated edition.

In order thoroughly to understand the importance of the documents at the Record Office, it may be useful to glance briefly at the history of the various editions down to the year 1688, at which the story they tell begins.

The first edition, probably printed before the end of December, 1677, was advertised by Ponder in the Term Catalogue for Hilary Term, 1677-8, as an octavo, to be sold for the sum of eighteen-pence. This edition was probably a small one, as it was obviously impossible for the publisher to foresee the immense and wide-world popularity that awaited the book, and we have also the fact that only two copies of it are known to exist at the present day. One of these is in the British Museum, and an examination of it proves one of two things either that Ponder, when he drew up that indictment against Braddyl, which he added to the fourth edition of 1680, made an incorrect statement, or else the copy in the British Museum is not one of Ponder's issue.

In that interesting advertisement, Ponder professed to supply the true test by which his editions might be distinguished from the pirated copies. He says, 'You may distinguish it (that is the false copy) thus, The Notes are printed in Long Primer, a base old letter, almost worn out, hardly to be