button to main menu  Gents Mag 1843 part 2 p.489

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Gentleman's Magazine 1843 part 2 p.489

  letter
  Philemon Holland
  William Camden

Philemon Holland to William Camden

Sept. 26.
MR. URBAN,
MANY of our antiquaries have doubted whether Philemon Holland's translation of Camden's "Britannia" was countenanced by Camden himself. The editor of "Original Letters of Eminent Men of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries," recently published by the Camden Society, has given substantial evidence that Camden's own maps accompanied Holland's translation, and that the work was published by Camden's bookseller.
The question, however, is placed entirely at rest by the following letter from Philemon Holland himself to Camden, preserved in the Museum in one of the Cottonian Manuscripts; whence it will be clearly seen that Camden took the pains to revise the sheets of Holland's translation as they gradually issued from the press, and that Holland consulted Camden upon every difficult passage.
Yours, &c.
B.M.
(MS. Cotton. Jul. C. v. fol.58.)
1609, 25 Aug.
My very good friend, Mr. Camden, It appeareth, now that my Translation of your Britannia is under the presse, that you have taken paines in perusing the written sheets, and that they mean to use you still in that kind. I must confesse now that I mistook in the 2. pag. the latter verse of the twain, as touching the true sense, for finding it without any comma, and knowing there were many British Ilands more, I made comparison between our Britanny and all other British Isles; so that you have done me a pleasure in altering my latter verse. The printer should have done well to have printed your verse true, which I suppose went in this number,
(And, seek through Iands all, none may with British Isles compare.)
Let me I pray you be further beholden unto you in the copie new set up: and namely in some ffew places here under noted, wherein I am not satisfied.
Pag. 181, lin. 46, Canonici,) whether a secular priest or regular? because to Canonicus els wher is added regularis, as pag. 349. I have in Colleges termed them secular, and in Monasteries regular. As you meet with such places beside, I pray correct them to your own sense.
239, lin. 2, DOMINUS AUGUSTINUS,) Sr Austen or Lord Augustin, and so in DOMINUS HEUBERTUS in another place.
280, lin. 42, ffor Leckhamsted) I find written in my Latin copie over head (Thornton), by whose hand I know not, but it hath made me to doubt therof. And in truth that Latin copie which I followed in perusing my Translation, differeth from that which I went by in my Translation, but especially in that passage of Th'Earles of Richmond; which did put me to a new labour.
293, lin. 45, Lugubri Barbarorum divortio. I doubt that I misse the true sense.
355, 12, Infra Banna~ Leucam. What I should call it properly I wote not. Yet in Lauca Brionij, yow interprete Leuca in the margin (The Lowy). But what is Banna?
419, 20, Πυρογνή, και Βρόμον οΰ Βρόμιον. Spicigenam Bromon, haud Bromium,) I stick here because of the comma and copulature in the Greek, but not in your Latin. May it please yow to supply that place with your English.
222. In the epitaphicall inscription of HENRY FITZ-ALAN,) I do not well conceive the author's meaning in thes words, Sui generis ab Alani filio cognominatus,) nor in (MORINIS,) whether is ment PONTHEAU or PICARDIE generally taken? Nor yet in DOMUS REGIAE PRAEFECTUS,) whether it be not the same that after ward SENescallus.
What els where shall occurre, let me intreat you to certify. Bold I am and
overbold. But your candor and love approved promiseth me thus much and more to. And so commending your selfe, your good studies and endevors to God's blessing, I take my leave for this time.
Coventry, 25 August, 1609.
Your loving and affectionate ffreind,
PH. HOLLAND.

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