A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: in antiquities. Concerning the most noble, and renowned English Nation. By the study, and travell of R.V. Dedicated unto the Kings most excellent Majestie.

Bookseller Notes

This volume contains first editions of two important works of English historical scholarship. A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence disrupted the enduring foundational myths of England which centred on Brutus of Troy, foregrounding instead the literature, culture and society of the Saxons. Verstegan's object was to demonstrate the descent of the modern English from the Germanic peoples of northern Europe, and that the English language similarly originated with the Saxons. Amongst its many anecdotes, his Restitution includes the first account in English of the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin (pp. 85-87), an episode which he dates to July 22 1376. Richard Rowlands, was, as a note to the title page here records, 'an English antiquary, born in London of Flemish parents'. His Catholic faith led to exile on the continent and he settled in in Antwerp, where he resumed his paternal name of Verstegan, set up a printing press, and acted as an agent for the transmission of Catholic literature. Dedicated to King James, Restitution is an enthusiastic paean to his country of birth. It was reprinted multiple times in the 17th century, and retained a prominent position in English scholarship for several decades.The second work here is Camden's Remaines, published some nineteen years after his magnum opus Britannia: '1605 produced another volume of material gathered from Camden's and Robert Cotton's libraries, the Remaines of a Greater Worke Concerning Britain. Camden did not put his name to it, identifying himself only by the final letter of each name, as M. N., but he dedicated it to Robert Cotton, suggesting his own ambivalence about a book that consisted of (as he wrote in the 'Epistle Dedicatorie') 'the rude rubble and out-cast rubbish of a greater and more serious worke'. If the Remaines is an ungainly, seemingly shapeless collection, it is also frequently witty and wise, and richly varied. Bringing together Camden's interest in literature and language, and social and cultural history, including both popular and high culture, the Remaines contains a wealth of material. Moreover, as a collection it reflects the unusual moment in the emergence of early modern Britain when the artefacts of the vernacular culture were coming to be valued in new ways. With the first historically organized anthology of medieval poetry, a historical and comparative study of the English language, collections of names and their meanings [...] it can be seen as a popular spin-off from its more expensive and serious historical mother lode, the Britannia [1586]. With two additional, enlarged editions in his own lifetime, seven throughout the seventeenth century, and several reprints thereafter, the Remaines remained a popular and useful work.' Together, these represent a particularly fecund moment of historical enquiry into the origins of England which set the tone for antiquarian researches of the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.