We have opted to make minimal editorial changes so as not to disfigure these early modern texts.
We have edited the texts on the following principles:
• As is common practice, we have consistently revised the letters u, v, s, and j (i = j; f = s; v = u, and vice versa) in accordance with modern usage and have silently expanded contractions. This applies both to the treatises and to the texts that are quoted in the notes.
• We have retained original capitalization, italicization, paragraphing, and spelling.
• We have retained the original punctuation, except when the structure of the sentence was too obscure; this is signaled in the notes.
• We have used notes in order to supply a gloss for words that are now obsolete or to provide any other information that aids understanding of the extract.
• The references that were originally set in the body of the text have been retained in their original form. Those that were originally marginal notes have been inserted into the main text in square brackets before or after the quotation, for clarity’s sake. Any other reference that we judged necessary has been inserted in the notes.
• We have signaled the corrections that we have made, in the case of undeniable misprint, by using the notation “Cor: ” meaning that we have corrected the following word.
• Even though the French Marconville most likely used the Vulgate, we have used the Geneva Bible to refer to biblical passages in both Marconville’s li and Perkins’s treatises. The Bible that we have used for reference for Webbe’s treatise is the King James Version.
• The original pagination appears in square brackets and is italicized when it is inferred by the editor and does not appear on the original page.
• For the French version of Marconville’s treatise presented in Appendix A, we have adopted the same principles. Moreover, we have dissevered words and added apostrophes when necessary, as signaled in the notes: “cestoit” (c’estoit), “lebon” (le bon), “lon” (l’on). We have also silently added accents for clarity’s sake: (a/à, des/dès, ou/où), and have signaled the passages that are not translated in the English version by using smaller characters. The notes only comment on passages that do not appear in the English version.