A Collection of Early English Proverbs in Dunedin, New Zealand

ONE of the duties expected of a rare books librarian in a public library is the examination of material brought in by members of the public-usually in the hope of a valuation, but often for bibliographic verification or simply for comment or advice on care and conservation. Usually these items-books such as nineteenth-century editions of Shakespeare or Victorian family Bibles-have no great merit as specimens of printing, but from time to time one is confronted with something of real interest. In April 1984 a Dunedin woman brought in a number of early printed books which had been collected by her grandfather and passed on through the family. One of these was a copy of the first edition of one of the most important early collections of English proverbs, John Ray's A Collection of English Proverbs, printed in Cambridge in 1670.' The book is a small octavo, measuring 155 x 100 mm, internally clean and undamaged with all text leaves present. The pagination consists of six unnumbered preliminary pages and 296 numbered pages (with p.272 wrongly set as p.227); the signatures collate: A4, B-T8, U4. The late nineteenth-century binding, in full dark red morocco with raised bands, gilt ruling and tooling, marbled endpapers and spine title in gilt, is identified by the stamp of the London bookbinding firm of Ramage. Ray's text is divided into various sequences according to kinds of proverb (e.g. 'Proverbial Sentences, 'Proverbial Phrases, 'Proverbial Similes 'Proverbial Rhythmes'); to subject-matter (e.g. 'health; 'husbandry; 'love'); and finally a long sequence of proverbs arranged by geographical origin (English counties; Scotland). The 'Proverbial Sentences; 'Proverbial Phrases' and the geographical sequences are further arranged in alphabetical order (by head-word). As he notes in the preface to the work ('To the Reader'), in compiling his own collection Ray quarried earlier printed collections as well as gathering material from his own observations and those of informants in various parts of England. Interesting enough in its own right, the book is made unique by a large number of manuscript annotations in several hands-perhaps as many as six-dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Following the alphabetical and geographical arrangement of the printed material, these early readers have added proverbs and comments of their own. Unfortunately some of these annotations suffered loss or damage when the book was trimmed for binding by Ramage. New flyleaves were inserted at this stage, and ink-impressions on the final page of text indicate that at least one of the original flyleaves, bearing manuscript material, has been removed. There are a number of indications as to the early history of the book. The title page carries an ownership inscription 'J. Allen Trin. Coll. Camb.' and by careful examination of the handwriting-an upright, rounded italic-it is possible to identify three further examples of Allen's hand with a fair degree of certainty. One of these is the proverb found on p.58 of Ray's text, while the other two take the form of comments indicating Allen's familiarity with people and places in Staffordshire and Cheshire

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