+──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │13│ Apparatus │ Apparatus │ ..... │Apparatus, Proleg., │ │ │ │ │ │ etc. │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ The first announcement of the _London Polyglot_ was made in 1652, when Dr. Walton published _A Brief Description of an Edition of the Bible in the Original Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek, with the most ancient Translations of the Jewish and Christian Churches, viz. the Sept. Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, etc., and the Latin versions of them all; a new Apparatus, etc._[310] {171} This Description, which set forth the various improvements in the proposed _Polyglot_ on its predecessors, was accompanied by a specimen-sheet[311] containing the first twelve verses of the first chapter of Genesis in the following order: On one side, Hebrew with interlinear Latin translation, Latin (Vulgate), Greek (Septuagint) with Latin, Chaldean paraphrase with Latin, Hebrew-Samaritan, Samaritan. On the other side, Syriac with Latin, Arabic with Latin, Latin translation of the Samaritan, Persian with Latin. The imprint to this highly interesting specimen (a copy of which is said to be in the Library of Sydney College, Cambridge) was: _Londini, Typis Jacobi Flesher_; from which it appears that James Flesher was the first possessor of some of the types cast by the polyglot founders, and subsequently used by Roycroft in this great work.[312] Flesher’s _Specimen_, which we have unfortunately not been able to discover, met with many critics. Amongst others was Dr. Boate, the Dutch scholar (who had already found fault with the Hebrew character used in the Paris _Polyglot_, which he described as “a very scurvy one, and such as will greatly disgrace the work”), was very disparaging to the new undertaking. It was probably in deference to this critic that Dr. Walton added the following MS. note to the copy of the specimen now at Sydney College, Cambridge: “Typos Hebr. et Syr. cum punctis meliores, parabimus, etc.” The time occupied in securing the co-operation and assistance of the learned men of the day, in getting subscribers,[313] in arranging copy, and finally in {172} providing the necessary types, delayed the commencement of the undertaking till September 1653. Writing to Usher on July the 18th of that year, Dr. Walton thus notes the near completion of the preliminary arrangements: “I hope we shall shortly begin the work; yet I doubt the _founders_ will make us stay a week longer than we expected. . . . We have resolved to have a better paper than that of 11_s._ a ream, viz., of 15_s._ a ream.”[314] Towards the end of September 1653, the impression of the first volume was begun at the press of Thomas Roycroft, in Bartholomew Close, whose name will always be honourably associated with this famous work.