Editorial note — Front matter
Richard Sherry translation
¶ That chyldren oughte to be taught and brought vp gẽtly in vertue and learnynge, and that euen forthwyth from theyr na tiuitie: A declamacion of a briefe theme, by E- rasmus of Rote- rodame.
¶ Impryn- ted at London by Iohn Day, dwellinge ouer Aldersgate, beneth saint Martyns. And are to be sold at his shop by the litle conduit in Chepesyde at the sygne of the Resurrec- tion.
Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. Per septennium.
Some paragraph breaks in this e-text are conjectural. The printed book had the following kinds of breaks:
conventional paragraph with indented first line
unambiguous paragraph with non-indented first line
ambiguous paragraph: previous line ends with blank space, but the space is not large enough to contain the first syllable of the following line
sentence break corresponds to line break: this happens randomly in any printed book, and only becomes ambiguous when the book also has non-indented paragraphs
In this e-text, the second type of paragraph is marked with a simple line break (no space) and pilcrow ¶. The third type has a pilcrow ¶ but no break. The fourth type is not marked.
The pattern of initial v, non-initial u is followed consistently.
The spelling “they” is more common than “thei”.
The form “then” is normally used for both “then” and “than”; “than” is rare.
The most common spelling is “wyll”, but “wyl”, “wil” and “will” also occur.
Line-end hyphens were completely arbitrary; words split at line break were hyphenated about two-thirds of the time. The presence or absence of a hyphen has not been noted. Hyphenless words at line-end were joined or separated depending on behavior elsewhere in the text:
Always one word (re-joined at line break): som(e)what, without, afterward(e)s
Usually one word: often( )times, what( )so( )euer
One or two words: an( )other
Usually two words: it/him/my.. self/selues; shal( )be; straight( )way
Always two words: here to
Numbers were printed with leading and following .period. When the number came at the beginning or end of a line, the “outer” period was sometimes omitted. These have been supplied for consistency.
* “in a table”
In context, “table” looks like an error for either “tale” or “fable”, but it means picture (Latin tabula)
† “the grekes says dracontes in the genitiue case”
Latin draco, draconis Greek δρακων, δρακοντος (drakôn, drakontos)