rst; so that all the persons to whom he
presented this book, seeing their names at the head, considered they had
received a particular compliment. An Italian physician, having written
on Hippocrates's Aphorisms, dedicated each book of his Commentaries to
one of his friends, and the index to another!

More than one of our own authors have dedications in the same spirit. It
was an expedient to procure dedicatory fees: for publishing books by
subscription was then an art undiscovered. One prefixed a different
dedication to a certain number of printed copies, and addressed them to
every great man he knew, who he thought relished a morsel of flattery,
and would pay handsomely for a coarse luxury. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, in
his "Counsel to Builders," has made up half the work with forty-two
dedications, which he excuses by the example of Antonio Perez; but in
these dedications Perez scatters a heap of curious things, for he was a
very universal genius. Perez, once secretary of state to Philip II. of
Spain, dedicates his "Obras," first to "Nuestro sanctissimo Padre," and
"Al Sacro Collegio," then follows one to "Henry IV.," and then one still
more embracing, "A Todos." Fuller, in his "Church History," has with
admirable contrivance introduced twelve title-pages, besides the general
one, and as many particular dedications, and no less than fifty or sixty
of those by inscriptions which are addressed to his benefactors; a
circumstance which Heylin in his severity did not overlook; for "making
his work bigger by forty sheets at the least; and he was so ambitious of
the number of his patrons, that having but four leaves at the end of his
History, he discovers a particular benefactress to inscribe them to!"
This unlucky lady, the patroness of four leaves, Heylin compares to
Roscius Regulus, who accepted the consular dignity for that part of the
day on which Cecina by a decree of the senate was degraded from it,
which occasioned Regulus to be ridiculed by the people all his life
after, as the consul of half a day.

The price for the dedication of a play was at length fixed, from five to
ten guineas from the Revolution to the time of George I., when it rose
to twenty; but sometimes a bargain was to be struck when the author and
the play were alike indifferent. Sometimes the party haggled about the
price, or the statue while stepping into his niche would turn round on
the author to assist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux,
dissa