C.H.

St. Catharine’s Hall, Cambridge.

* * * * *

TRANSLATION OF THE PHILOBIBLON.

L.S. (Vol. ii, p. 153.) inquires for a “translation of Robert de Bury’s Philobiblon.”  An English version of this famous treatise by Richard, not Robert Aungerville (see, for the surname, Pits, p. 467.) de Bury, Bishop of Durham in 1333, was published by Mr. Rodd in the year 1832.  The translator has not given his name, but he was Mr. John Bellingham Inglis, formerly a partner in the house of Inglis, Ellis, and Co.  It is greatly to be desired that there should be a careful reprint of this most interesting work, and that the first edition of 1473 should be collated with MSS.  The translation by Mr. Inglis might be revised, and made to accompany the Latin text.  Let us hope, however, that his notes, if they be permitted again to appear, may be purified from scepticism and profaneness.

The claim of Holcot to be the author of this tract, should be well considered and decided upon; {203} and the errors of the learned Fabricius (who had a manuscript copy in which the writer was styled “Muiegervile”, instead of Aungerville), which have been repeated by Mansi, should be corrected.  Dr. James, the first Bodleian librarian, fell into a strange mistake when he imagined that his inaccurate reprint at Oxford, in 1599, was the second edition of this treatise.  It was in reality the fourth, having been preceded by the impressions, Colon. 1473; Spirae, 1483; and Paris, 1500.  So far as I remember, the editio princeps has not been specified by Gough. (Brit.  Topog. ii. 121.)

R.G.

I find I can answer the Query of L.S. (Vol. ii., p. l53.), who asks,
“Where can I procure a translation of Robert de Bury’s Philobiblon?”

A translation was published by Mr. Rodd, in 1832, of which the following is the title:—­

“Philobiblon:  a Treatise on the Love of Books, by Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, written in MCCCXLIV; and translated from the first Edition, MCCCCLXXIII, with some Collations.  London:  Printed for Thomas Rodd, 2 Great Newport Street, Leicester Square, 1832.”

This translation is a small 8vo. volume, of which there is a copy in the Douce collection in the Bodleian; at the beginning of which copy, on a fly-leaf, the words, “J.B.  Inglis to his friend F. Douce, Esq.,” are written; and opposite, on the inside of the cover, there is written in pencil, apparently in Douce’s own hand, “I had read the MS. of this work before it was printed.”

There appears to have existed some difference of opinion with respect to the authorship of the Philobiblon.  Leland, in his Itinerary, ed. 8vo.  Oxford 1744, vol. iii. pp. 77, 78, sub loc. Saresbyri, says,—­

    “Ex tabella in Sacello S. Mariae.  Orate pro anima Ricbardi Poure,
    quondam Sarum Episcopi.” ...