180 
this country in 1200. His authenticated works in the edition 
now on the table were published in 1847, more than 600 years 
after his death. 
After the close of the Saxon and Norman periods there was 
succession of eminent Bath authors in the 16th and 17th centuries. 
The most remarkable and one of the earliest was Dr. Turner, 
Dean of Wells; Sir John Harington, Samuel Daniel, the ever 
memorable John Hales born in Bath and educated at the 
Grammar School, also Alexander Hume, a Bath schoolmaster, 
author of the “ Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan tongue 
a Treatise noe shorter than necessarie for the Schools.” 
Notwithstanding this early association of Bath with literature, 
the date of the earliest book printed in Bath in the British 
Museum is 1733, and in the Ist vol. of the Proceedings of the 
Library Association this date is quoted as the first work printed 
in this city. I have, however, in my collection of Bath books a 
volume printed in 1730, and this I take to be the first printed 
here. It was written by Robert Spurrell and entitled “The 
Elements of Chronology, or the Calender explained ; dedicated to 
the Right Worshipful the Mayor of Bath and to the Worshipful 
John Billing and Thomas Attwood, Justices and the rest of the 
Corporation of the City of Bath.” 
Is it not passing strange that this little modern 12mo. volume 
looking like a thing of yesterday is the earliest specimen we have 
although the art of printing was introduced in this country three 
centuries before! How isit to be accounted for? The inquiry 
is worth following. Notwithstanding printing was invented and 
practised on the Continent before it was known in England no 
resistance was offered to its introduction although the work was 
carried on by foreigners, on the contrary, every encouragement 
was given to the strangers to exercise their calling in England 
not only by influential laymen but by the ecclesiastical authorities, 
in their different foundations. On referring to a list of those 
places in England where printing-houses, as they were then called, 
