Fools and jesters: with a reprint of Robert Armin's Nest of ninnies, 1608 / With an introduction and notes [by J.P. Collier].

  • Armin, Robert, active 1610.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fools and jesters: with a reprint of Robert Armin's Nest of ninnies, 1608 / With an introduction and notes [by J.P. Collier]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/92
    INTRODUCTION. It would be singular that a man of so much, and of such peculiar, learning as the late Mr. Douce, in his “ Dissertation upon Clowns and Fools,” should not even refer to the ensuing tract, did we not know that only a single copy of it (as far as has been ascertained by the most diligent inquiries during the last thirty or forty years) exists in any public or private collection. Were it, therefore, of less value than it really possesses, as a curious picture of manners, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth, and in the beginning of that of James I., we should be disposed to reprint it, in order to place it beyond the possibility of destruction. The original is preserved in the Bodleian Library, the statutes of which, we believe, forbid fire within the precincts of the edifice ; and the unceasing and almost affectionate care of the Rev. Dr. Bandinel and his curators inspires every confidence as to the security of the matchless stores in their custody : still we are unwilling that any volume of this description, of which no other exemplar is known, should be exposed to the slightest risk of loss, however remote or improbable. We mention this as an addL