32 BOOKS OF SECRETS. 



The books enumerated above have been for the most part in English, 

 but they form only one section of those which exist. They were produced 

 in abundance in Europe generally, in Latin, French, German, Italian, 

 Dutch and other languages, and translations from one language to another 

 were common enough. The same desire for knowledge seems to have 

 prevailed in other countries as in England, and the same methods were 

 adopted to satisfy it. There was no other source free to people anxious for 

 practical instruction and information, there was no technical education, and 

 only in such receipts and directions as could be obtained from the books 

 of " secrets" could people become acquainted with the properties and uses 

 of different substances. 



The books are pretty much of the same character everywhere, though 

 they do not cover exactly the same ground. Thus in English medical 

 secrets predominate, while in other languages the collections are more 

 general. Italy, especially, was prolific in books of the kind and excelled in 

 the issue of small pamphlets of from four or eight to twelve or sixteen 

 pages, with florid titles and a little kernel of secrets of varied content. Of 

 these evanescent productions I have seen about thirty, but that must be a 

 fraction of those which have been in circulation. It is noteworthy that the 

 deterioration in the externals of the volumes is as patent in the books 

 produced on the Continent as here, showing that general causes were at 

 work, while in the matter of long-winded tide-pages and crude ornament 

 the books of the eighteenth century were the same everywhere. 



In a review of these books during four centuries and a half, successive 

 styles of book production cannot escape notice. Those of the sixteenth 

 century are in black letter and are generally pleasing and sometimes even 

 handsome, though some by Wyer and others are not creditable to the 

 printer. For the majority of those produced in the seventeenth century 

 little that is favourable can be said ; the execution of the books gradually 

 deteriorated until, towards the end of that period, printing had fallen to 

 the lowest ebb. The books, even the best of them, are of inferior quality. 

 The paper is coarse, the printing rude, and the cover is a bit of brown 



