Book excerpt: Excerpt from Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique, 1560 In 1560 there was imprinted at London by John Kingston, 'and now newlie sette forthe againe, with a prologue to the reader, 'c Tbt DEGREESIrtt of Hintoriqucy for the use of all such as arc studious of eloquence, set forthe in Englishe, by Thomas Wilson/ This is not the first edition. As is implied in the title the book had been already issued 5 it had been published in ijfj, beautifully printed in black letter by Richard Grafton, the king's printer. For reasons which will appear hereafter, the last year of Mary's reign had been a stirring time for the author, and little leisure was left him for literary tasks. But with the accession of Elizabeth security and prosperity returned to him, and he set about preparing a new edition of his successful textbook. Much was altered and much added * be prefaced it by a new prologue of much personal interest. Towards the end of the year the corrected and completed book was issued from the press. It was reprinted in ijdi, 1563, and 1567, and indeed frequently down to about the year of the Great Armada, when apparently, whether owing to the advent of newer textbooks or to the changing taste of a more fastidious and sophisticated period we cannot know, it fell out of demand and public esteem and gradually ceased to be reprinted. Tlx strtt of Hfmortqut DEGREES then, was in its day a work of great popularity $ it passed through numerous editions and was eagerly read by two generations of seekers after eloquence and literary skill, and then slipped gently back into the night, gathering the dust of unused bookshelves. But a day arrives when the obsolete becomes again alive and interesting. A modern finds little to choose between the book that has been superseded and its successor; he loves them both for their strangeness and for the picture which they suggest to him of forgotten habits of thought. Antiquity gilds dullness; stupidity becomes amiable in dead men. It is not, however, the undiscrlminating zeal of the antiquary or the mere delight About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.