Author: CAREW (Richard):
Title: The Survey of Cornwall. And An Epistle concerning the Excellencies of the English Tongue. Now first Published from the Manuscript. With the Life of the Author, By H*** C***** Eaq. [Pierre Des Maizeaux].
Description: London, Printed for Samuel Chapman, at the Angel in Pallmall; Daniel Brown jun. at the Black Swan without Temple-Bar; and James Woodman, at Cambden's-Head in Bowstreet, Covent-Garden. 1723. FIRST EDITION. Large 8vo, 225 x 172 mms., pp. [ii] [ii] iii - xix [xx blank], [viii], then foliated, [1] - 159 [160 - 163 indexes], followed by "An Epistle of Richard Carew Esq: concerning the Excellencies of the Engllsh Tongue," with separate title-page, pp. [2] 3 - 13 [14 blank], title-page in red and black, contemporary calf, rebacked in lighter calf, red morocco label; last six leaves (the "Epistle" stained a lower margin, but a good copy, with the armorial bookplate of Henry Waymouth on the front paste-down endp-paper, the autograph "J Harry Cook/1895" on the upper margin of the recto of the front free end-paper, an ownship inscription dated 1727 scored out on top margin of recto of adverts leaf, with adverts on verso. "Carew became a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, where his scholarship was clearly valued. He assisted Sir Henry Spelman with the latter's researches into the history of tithes, and was rewarded with the dedication of the resulting treatise. Greatly interested in language, and particularly in etymology, Carew's panegyric on 'The excellencie of the English tongue' was first published in the second edition of William Camden's Remaines (1614). It constituted a qualified rebuttal of Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence of Antiquities (1605), which rejected the British contribution to England's history and languages in favour of Germanic elements. Carew thereby became entangled in a dispute which involved (among others) Verstegan, Thomas Nashe, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, over the extent to which English should either assimilate foreign words or attempt to maintain a degree of linguistic integrity. Carew accepted Saxon as the 'natural language' of England (Jones, 220), but he was much more willing to recognize the contributions of foreign tongues and cultures than Verstegan was" (ODNB).

Keywords: language philology ;RLSE


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