Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets. Pt. III / by John Ferguson.

  • Ferguson, John, 1838-1916.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets. Pt. III / by John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    “The Author of this learned Book has, vdth great Labour, join’d many dispersed Rarities “of Art under several Heads; with much Modesty, brought a great deal of Reading into a “little Compass; and, withall, omitted to prefix his Name to it. Yet, in justice to his ** Memory, we have been obliged with it by another Hand. [In a foot-note he c][uotes “ Anthony a Wood]. There is a short Preface or Advertisement to the Reader, seemingly by “the Bookseller, in Commendation of the Work; wherein he says. You will imagine your- self, even among the Mechanic Arts, to be conversant in the Liberal. Tho’ from the Defect “ of the alphabetical Catalogue, intended at the beginning, of the principal Authors mentiond “ in this Work; with some Errors in the Table of Contents, and the Omissions in the Index of “ any Reference to the pages; we might, alone, without any other Knowledge of the Author, “ or the time when he died, have presumed he did not supervise the Press, yet are those “ Imperfections of little moment, because the Work is concise.” In this he refers to deficiencies, which, as I have already mentioned, he tried to supply in his own copy. Powell’s little work is divided into twelve chapters, each of which he glorifies with a Greek title. They are: of Dials; of Spheres; of Machines for Motion; of Writing; of Printing; of Painting; of Spinning; of Music; of Glass; of Sailing; of Taming of Wild Beasts; of certain pretty knacks and extrava- gancies of Art. The brevity of the treatment shows the author’s mastery of the material, and all that has been said of Powell and his book will be confirmed by every unbiassed reader. Of course, one would never place Powell’s book in comparison with Polydore Vergil’s. It is not nearly so detailed or so comprehensive, and the author seems to have aimed at chronicling discoveries which Vergil had omitted. Powell’s book besides, contains no controversial matter; it is written without extravagance, and has an agreeable flavour of quaintness and humour. From the abridgement and from Bohn’s edition of Beckmann’s history, already spoken of, no one could form any idea of the genuine English trans- lation. The second edition printed in four octavo volumes, in 1814, I have recently seen and it is undoubtedly the best reproduction of the original. Not to speak of its very much handsomer appearance, it contains many notes —full of interesting matter—that are omitted by Bohn, and each volume is furnished with very valuable indexes both of authors and of subjects. This edition is superior to the first, as it contains a fourth volume, but I have found that even in this edition the whole of the original is not present. The article, for instance, on the bibliography of the histories, which has been so