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H.C., we learn from the dedication, was Henry Cockeram, to whom John Ford the dramatist addressed the following congratulatory lines: To my industrious friend, the Author of this English Dictionarie, MR. HENRY COCKRAM OF EXETER. Borne in the West? liue there? so far from Court?

And after we had a little begun, perceiuing what great trouble it was to come running to me for euerie worde they missed, knowing then of no other Dictionarie to helpe vs, but Sir Thomas Eliots Librarie, which was come out a little before; I appointed them certaine leaues of the same booke euerie daie to write the english before the Latin, & likewise to gather a number of fine phrases out of Cicero, Terence, Cæsar, Liuie, &c. & to set them vnder seuerall titles, for the more readie finding them againe at their neede.

In English, as we have seen, many of the vocabularies from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, were arranged under class-headings according to subject; and, although Sir Thomas Elyot's Dictionary was actually in alphabetical order, that of J. Withals, published in 1554, under the title 'A short dictionarie for young beginners, and with the colophon 'Thus endeth this Dictionary very useful for Children, compiled by J. Withals, reverts to the older arrangement of subject-classes, as Names of things in the Æther or skie, the xii Signes, the vii Planets, Tymes, Seasons, Other times in the yere, the daies of the weeke, the Ayre, the viii windes, the iiii partes of the worlde, Byrdes, Bees, Flies, and other, the Water, the Sea, Fishes, a Shippe with other Water vessels, the earth, Mettales, Serpents, woorms and creepinge beastes, Foure-footed beastes, &c.

John Bullokar, then resident in Chichester, followed with a work of the same kind and size, named by him An English Expositor, of which numerous editions came out, one as late as 1684. And in 1623 appeared the work which first assumed the title of 'The English Dictionarie, by H.C., Gent.

Appreciation of Cockeram's 'Dictionarie' was marked by the numerous editions through which it passed down as late as 1659. Meanwhile Thomas Blount, Barrister of the Inner Temple, and correspondent of Anthony