8 BOOK'S OF SECRETS. 



that is at once talked about. So in the earlier times the unusual events 

 were noticed, but defective observation and partial ignorance of their 

 causes coupled with superstitious fears, led to their being credited with 

 sinister significance, and being assigned to malign agencies. 



Books of Secrets, therefore, are of diverse sorts, and I have not 

 hesitated about including all the varieties attainable. But just on that 

 account the theme is so extensive and can be contemplated from so many 

 points of view that it is impossible to include them all within a single 

 paper. Attention, consequently, may be restricted to one or two aspects. 

 One, for example, which concerns the Society more particularly, deals with 

 the characteristics of the books themselves ; another with their contents, 

 but I shall not attempt to keep these separate. As books they are in all 

 languages, they are of all dates, sizes, and qualities of paper, printing and 

 binding, and they are in every kind of condition, good, bad and indifferent. 

 There are the books which were in everybody's hands, and those which 

 can never have been used at all. In such cases it is not always easy to 

 see what was the merit which carried a book through many editions, when 

 others, seemingly as good, if not better, were quite unsuccessful. That, 

 however, is not now a topic for discussion. 



Prior to the sixteenth century there is little in printed form that can 

 be brought into the category of Books of Secrets. The encyclopaedias 

 which remain, notably those of Isidorus, of Bartholomaeus de Glanvilla 

 and Vincentius Bellovacensis, even though they glance at practical matters, 

 are too comprehensive to be included under such a limited designation. 

 But that collections of technical receipts were in use is shown by the work 

 of Theophilus, which was known only in manuscript till it was printed 

 in French in 1843, ^"d afterwards in English in 1847. This work contains 

 receipts for colours, glass, enamel and metal work. Other manuscripts on 

 colours, painting, glass and other arts of the Middle Ages were published 

 by Mrs. Merrifield in 1849, and the work on colours by Heraclius was edited 

 in 1873 by Albert Ilg, who also began an edition of Theophilus the next 

 year. 



