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Sir, it’s an honor that you are contributing to wiki as I’ve found your great website far above and beyond enlightening on many occasions. It’s really a priceless research-tool. GeneralPatton 16:54, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

BTW, there are dozens of copies of WP content, with varying degrees of GFDL compliance - we have a list of them somewhere in the "Wikipedia:" pages, but I can't find it right now. Anyway, we just maintain the list of them, no need to note in articles that they've been mirrored all over the place (it's a feature, not a bug :-) ). Stan 02:32, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dear Bill, Please note that i have now spent many, many hours compiling a selection of books in Sir T.B.'s library using the facsimile of 1986 E.J.Brill publications edited by J.S Finch. If there are any incorrect titles it is from those who listed the library contents in 1711 for auction. Also i really am not sure whether the usage of speech-marks to highlight titles makes the page actually look any better just simply more cluttered. Yes by all means be bold in editing pages but also please be aware that some pages have taken other wikis many many hours to compile! Also it is with some irratation i have noted that you have now made titles of Latin books indistinguishable from those written in English through your editing i shall revert this . Please consult me before any more 'helpful' editing . Regards Norwikian 10:32, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On the Library, no question you've done a stellar job digging up the actual information.

First item, I caught it before I read you, and have now reverted it, sorry: you're absolutely right, I didn't understand Wiki style conventions, and should not have changed double-apostrophes to single-quotes!

I am, as you realize, no Browne scholar (although I've at least read him all, some of him repeatedly, probably my favorite English book is Garden of Cyrus/Hydriotaphia). I come at this page as someone with an interest parallel to Browne's, in many of the same texts: I've input online -- hand-typed, not scanned -- 6 of the ancient texts mentioned; and others not mentioned but which he must certainly have had, like Plutarch, Aelian, Cato, Frontinus, Vitruvius.

As for the actual content of this page, I didn't realize the typos and manifest errors were copied verbatim, but the reproduction of uncorrected errors is germane not to "Library of Sir TB" but to "1711 Catalogue etc." If the article were the latter, we would have to revert them right away and I'd feel very stupid for having edited them. But our concern here is with elucidating what Sir Thomas read, so there can be no harm in correcting accidental nonsense words due either to reading errors -- e.g., "Differtatio" (clearly long esses); or to uncorrected scanning -- e.g., "Sidereus Nuricius"; or to typos of unknown origin -- e.g., "Umbrare". Disabbreviating some of these titles would probably be useful for the audience this page is likely to reach, but there, I've been very cautious

There are still a pile of minor errors, and I've snagged a few more that I could clear up without reference to the original. But for example I've passed on the flexible spellings of 16c-17c French which might allow certain items, then maybe not; for example, most French words that would have an accent today, I've left unaccented, because accents were newish then and the actual books very likely had unaccented titles, although again maybe not. Despite being half-French, French-educated, and with many years experience as a French translator, I still haven't managed to figure out "naises traits" -- the closest reasonable emendation I can come up with "autres traits" but have failed to convince myself. Other cruxlets, in the matter of which I've been very cautious and changed nothing of course, include:

• "de Cive", which is not Latin nor any reasonable abbreviation;
• "Serpent and Draconum historica", where "Serpent(ium) & Draconum historia" looks probable;

Much more probable, but I've also been cautious and done nothing:

• "Questions in Genesis"; the work was published in 1623 alright, as "Quaestiones in Genesim"; was there an English translation that fast with our title? It seems very unlikely to me. (In general, if we want to get to the actual titles of the books -- fair nuff -- quite a few others ought to be changed: Plautus' Comedies, Martin Luther, etc. Right now at any rate we have an inconsistent list, opting partly for the original titles, partly for modern English translations.)

I removed the link to Philology by the way because in the work by Martianus Capella the allegory of Philologia has very little to do with what we now call philology.