“The book contained three hundred and ninety-two pages, of which the last contained the errata and the printer’s short notice to the reader. There was no preface or introduction of any kind, and no notes. The only printed extra was this Latin motto in the middle of the blank page facing the title: ‘_Cujus opus, studio cur tantum quaeris inani?_’ ‘_Qui legis, et frueris, feceris esse tuum._’ which I turn thus: (_p._ 5). “‘Whose is the book?’ do you ask. ‘Why start such a bootless enquiry? If you but read and enjoy, you will have made it your own.’” (_pp._ 5‒6). “... The next year the same book was published again――an evident attempt to utilise the unsold remainder, as there was no difference whatever, except a new title page with the old fly-leaf motto included in it and a page at the end containing the autocriticon. In the only copy I have seen, [St. John’s College, Cambridge], the title page runs as follows: Novæ Solymæ Libri Sex; sive Institutio Christiani. 1. De Pueritia. 2. De Creatione Mundi. 3. De Juventute. 4. De Peccato. 5. De Virili Aetate. 6. De Redemptione Hominis. _Cujus opus, studio cur tantum quaeris inani?_ _Qui legis, et frueris, feceris esse tuum._ Londini: Typis Johannis Legati, et venundantur per Thomam Underhill sub signo Biblii in vico Anglice dicto Woodstreet. MDCXLIX.” Here we have the very useful addition that it was published by Thomas Underhill, of Wood Street. (preface _pp._ vii‒viii). “... That such a wide-reaching, learned, and varied work should have been allowed to remain unappreciated and utterly ignored for more than two hundred and fifty years is certainly a very surprising literary fact.... “The critics seem to have been both blind and deaf. They gave no encouraging praise, and no disheartening condemnation. They simply took no notice. And so this great work of seventeenth-century art vanished from the sight of men. A few copies were put away in college libraries, where they rested for years undisturbed and dust-covered in their original positions, and have so continued to rest for two centuries and a half, lost to the world.” (_p._ 18). “There is a spirit of pure, lofty, and unselfish morality evident throughout all the various scenes of this interesting and unaffected book. It shows us the brightest, strongest elements of God-fearing Puritanism;...” “Here are the lyric songs from ‘the law and prophets,’ Abraham’s meditation on the Mount Moriah, Cain’s lamentations for Abel, David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan, and many a noble ode from the Psalms and short epics from Job....” “Here Truth and Justice and the Fear of God are all placed on the high pedestals they so well deserve; and there is withal a kindly insistence everywhere on those great teachings which tend to make life more abounding in hope, more perfect in self-restraint and more lifted-up in spirit.”