17. Dictionaries and Etymologies are subjects which generally engross the attentions of 'curious antiquaries.' Some of the older dictionaries are of great interest. A few years ago our book-hunter purchased in London for half a crown a copy of Cooper's 'Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britanniae,' a thick folio printed at London by Henry Bynneman in 1584. It is bound in the original sheepskin, a portion of a vellum psalter having been used to strengthen the joints. The worthy bishop's text is delightful (Cooper died bishop of Winchester in 1594), the interpretations being in black letter, and it is full of quaint conceits. At the end is a biographical dictionary which certainly contains some startling statements. Baret's 'Alvearie or Triple Dictionarie,' 1573, and Rider's 'Bibliotheca Scholastica,' 1589, you may still come across, but do not set your heart upon acquiring a copy of Huloet's 'Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum' put forth at London in 1552. Perhaps the finest collection of dictionaries amassed by any one collector in this country was that of the reverend Dr. Skeat of Cambridge; but alas! at his death it was partly dispersed.
18. Shakespeareana has already been dealt with under heading No. 9, and the bibliography of the Drama is a voluminous one. You will find the following works of value to you at the outset, if this be the subject of your choice. Hazlitt's 'Manual for the Collector and Amateur of Old English Plays' was issued in 1892, whilst Mr. F. E. Schelling's 'Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642,' appeared in two volumes, New York, in 1908. The second volume contains a useful bibliography. Mr. W. W. Greg's 'List of English Plays written before 1643 and printed before 1770' was published by the Bibliographical Society in 1900. There is a supplementary volume which deals with Masques, Pageants, and some additional plays; it appeared in 1902. The bibliography to Chapter IV. in the tenth volume of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature' contains useful lists of works on the drama. The office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, 1623 to 1673, was edited by Professor Quincy Adams and published by the Yale University Press ('Cornell Studies in English,' vol. iii.) in 1917. It is the chief source of information about English plays and playwrights from 1623 until the Civil War, and the documents of the period 1660-73 are important to students of the Restoration Drama.