these pieces, and when or whether I can ever take the same pains again I know not. ’Tis a nauseous thing (as the proverb has it) cramben recoquere. Hut vexing myself mendeth not the matter, though I am no Stoick. I am, Dear sir, wishing you your health and never to have the same ill luck with me, &c, M. Maittaire.” Another letter begins, “Worthy Sir, and my very kind friend,” and seems to indicate that a Mr. Humber had some right of property in Annales Typographici; one volume was just out, as to which he writes, “Many gentlemen who have already bought the foregoing volumes complain that Mr. Humber would oblige them to buy over again these volumes, or else they could not have this lately published.” Maittaire alludes to a criticising article in a journal entitled, Pour et Contre:— “The gentleman . . . is pleased to make himself very merry in ridiculing me; as his mirth can do me no harm, so it gives me no pain.” In the Gentleman’s Magazine there is this entry, Died in 1747, “Sept. 7, Michael Mattaire, Esq., author of Annales Typographici, and publisher of many classics with approbation, aged seventy-nine.”
I quote two Odes from the Senilia:—
In meum Natalem, 29th November.
Hâc me luce Parens lacrymosum misit in orbem,
Et fletus misero vox mihi prima fuit.
Sed cùm summa dies aderit, fuero-que renatus,
Non fletûs utinam causa sit ulla mihi!
Des igitur te, Christe, sequi dum vita superstat.
Vita,[1] opto, ut Christus sit mihi, morsque lucrum.
— Page 105.
Morbo periculoso laborantis supplicatio.
Jesu Christe, meae salutis Author,
Ad Te pando manus, premente morbo,
Fessas deliquio auferente vires.
Sustentes animam metu trementem
Mortis, quam mihi sentio propinquam.
In quâ crimina nostra diluisti
Spem Crux anchora fulciat fluentem.
Antequam ultima nox meas ocellos
Claudens imperet hinc abire, dicas,
Jesu Chrise, animae: Tuus Redemptor
Sum, delicta tuae remitto vita.
Dictâ pace mihi, lubens obibo.
— Page 31.
Maittaire’s portrait, painted by Dandridge, was engraved in mezzotint (jussu amicorum) by Faber.
*⁎* The sale of his library by Messrs Cock & Langford, the celebrated auctioneers, was a great event in the literary world. It took place in the end of 1747 and beginning of 1748, and occupied forty-four nights. The printing of the catalogue was committed to Mr. Bowyer; the books had been diligently read, and Maittaire himself had catalogued and described them. On the back of the title-page the auctioneer inserted an advertisement, in which he said:— “Though the books in their present condition make not the most ostentatious appearance, yet, like the late worthy possessor of them, however plain their outside may be, they contain within an invaluable treasure of ingenuity and learning. In fine, this is (alter fifty years’ diligent search and labour in collecting) the entire library of Mr. Maittaire, whose judgment in the choice of books, as it ever was confessed, so are they undoubtedly far beyond whatever I can attempt to say in their praise. In exhibiting them thus to the publick, I comply with the will of my deceased friend, and in printing the Catalogue from his own copy, just as he left it (though by so doing it is the more voluminous), I had an opportunity not only of doing the justice I owe to his memory, but also of gratifying the curious.”[2] A Latin letter, dated 1st June 1731, from Maittaire to Des Maizeaux, is printed in Nichols’ “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. iv. p. 561; the subject is Index-Making, a learned labour in which the writer confessedly excelled.
Motteux.
The Motteux family were refugees from Rouen. We find, under date 15th April 1693 (List xv.), the naturalisation of John Motteux, with his children, John Anthony, Timothy, Peter, Judith, Catherine, and Martha Mary. Although naturalised at so late a date, they came over in 1685, and some of them sooner. It is difficult to identify- the household from the entries in the French registers. But assuming the above-named Peter to be the litterateur, the year of whose birth was 1660, we can identify Timothy, Judith, and Catherine as his brother and sisters. On 11th April
