Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Minsheu, John
MINSHEU, JOHN (fl. 1617), lexicographer, lived chiefly in London, and made his living as a teacher of languages. He was poor, was married, and had children. Often, as may be gathered from his works, his lexicographical works were at a standstill for want of money, but generous friends, such as Sir Henry Spelman, helped him, and he managed to carry out his expensive undertakings. To finish his Spanish dictionary he went down to Cambridge, where, as may be seen from the subscription list prefixed to the ‘Guide into the Tongues,’ he made many friends. At Oxford he passed some months, with ‘his company of strangers and scholars,’ revising his ‘Guide,’ but although the vice-chancellor gave him in 1610 a certificate signed by himself and several heads of houses to the effect that the ‘Dictionary’ or ‘Guide’ was worthy of publication, Oxford did not furnish any subscribers. He seems to have been a laborious student, lighting the candle, as he says, for others and burning out himself. Ben Jonson describes him as a ‘rogue’ (Conversations with Drummond, ed. Laing, p. 4).
Minsheu wrote: 1. ‘A Dictionarie in Spanish and English,’ London, 1599, fol. 2. ‘A Spanish Grammar,’ London, 1599, fol. Minsheu's ‘Dictionary’ and ‘Grammar’ were both founded on the works of Richard Percival [q. v.] He also about this time seems to have published another shorter Spanish dictionary, more in the nature of an encyclopædia (cf. Arber, Stationers' Registers, iii. 145-6). 3. ‘Vocabularium Hispanico-Latinum et Anglicum copiosissimum. … A most copious Spanish Dictionarie with Latine and English (and sometime other Languages),’ London, 1617 (?) fol. 4. 'Ηγεμών είς τάς γλώσσας, id est Ductor in Linguas, the Guide into Tongues,’ London, 1617, fol., containing equivalents in eleven languages (2nd edit. 1626, in nine languages and much altered). This great lexicon is of great value as a dictionary of Elizabethan English; it is also in all probability the first English book printed by subscription, or at all events the first which contains a list of the subscribers. Minsheu obtained a license (granted to John Minshon) for the sole printing of the ‘Glosson’ for twenty-one years on 20 Feb. 1611. It seems that Bishop Wren had annotated a copy of the second edition with a view to republishing it himself.
[Works; Gent. Mag. 1786 ii. 1073, 1787 i. 16, 121; H. B. Wheatley's Chron. Notices of the Dictionaries of the English Language in Proc. of Philol. Soc. 1865, p. 230; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 269, ix. 447, xi. 422; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611-18, p. 10.]