To an Oxford man, independent of its merit as a compendium of the prolix comment of Eustathius, this volume should be especially interesting, on account of the prefatory dissertation "Ad {555} Magdalinenses," entitled _De Græcis Literis et Homeri Lectione et Imitatione_, by Laurence Humphrey. This worthy was sometime Greek reader in the university, but went abroad on account of religion at the accession of Queen Mary, and did not return until happier times after her death. He seems to have been living at Basle with Frobenius and Episcopius _in honestissimo loco_, but he could not avoid often thinking of his native land,--of Newport-Pagnell in Bucks, where he was born,--of Cambridge, where he received the rudiments of Latin and Greek,--but more especially of Oxford, where he completed his education. His feeling panegyric of his Alma Mater, shows him to have been at least one of her grateful sons. The dissertation is highly creditable to him, considering the period at which it was written; and the passage in which he gives an account of the work is not devoid of interest. "For the rest we give not Homer alone, but the Expositor Eustathius is subjoined. Yet not entire but reduced into a compendium by a man of untiring labour and noble learning--Hadrian Junius, not unknown to you,--for he lived some time in England, dedicated his Greek Lexicon to our royal Edward the Sixth, and has since published the _Annals of Queen Mary_, his _Animadversiones_, and _Centuries Adagiorum_, which issued from the press of Frobenius: he also effected this good work. Therefore although I had rather have the whole of Eustathius than the half, and to say the truth Epitomies never pleased me, yet because this author is prolix, and difficult to meet with, this perfect compendium of such an estimable work (which seems to me to be the best interpreter, poetical-elucidator, Greek lexicon, and onomasticon), will be useful to any one. I recommend, then, our Eustathio-Junian Homer to you." In 1560 Laurence Humphrey seems to have been still at Basle; for in that year he printed at the press of Oporinus, in 12mo., a work which he dedicates to Queen Elizabeth, entitled _Optimates, sive de Nobilitate, ejusque Antiqua Origine, Natura, Officiis, disciplina, et recta Christiana Institutione_; at the end of which he printed the argument of Philo-Judæus, [Greek: peri eugeneias], with a Latin version. This found favour in the eyes of an English translator, and it was printed at London by Thomas Marshe in 1563, 16mo., under the following title:--