Minshaei Emendatio, vel a mendis Expurgation, seu Augmentatio sui Ductoris in Linguas, the Guide into Tongues.

£2,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

STC 17947. The second editon of part 1 of the Ductor in Linguas (1617), without the Spanish-English Dictionary which had been reprinted separately in 1623 and formed part 2 of the 1617 edition. This second edition appeared in two issues in 1625 and was reissued in 1626 and 1627 “Minsheu hoped to make foreign-language learning easier for English speakers; consequently, for the first time in a multilingual dictionary, the headword was in English. It is followed by any cognates which might exist, an arrangement designed by Minsheu to assist the memory, as were the generous citations and the etymological explanations. It is unlikely that Minsheu had much success with his teaching methods, and doubt is cast on his scholarship in the light of his frequent plagiarisms. Nevertheless, his achievement was, in the face of unremitting toil and adversity, to produce a magnificent dictionary, The Guide into Tongues, which was cited by many later lexicographers, in particular by Stephen Skinner in his Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae (1671). Provenance: With the gilt arms block on the covers of Sir Thomas Shirley, Kt. (c. 1590-1654), antiquary, of Botolph’s Bridge, Huntingdonshire, 3rd (2nd surviving) son of Sir George Shirley, 1st. Baronet, of Staunton Harold, Leicesteshire. He was knighted on 22 May 1622. The arms are Shirley (paly of six, a canton ermine, with a crescent for difference as a 2nd son) impaling Harpur (within a bordure engrailed a lion rampant); crests: a Saracen’s head (Shi

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