One of the most popular English rhetoric books of the seventeenth century, John Smith's The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvail'd (dated 1657 but probably published in 1656) was printed in ten editions over a sixty-five-year period. Only the Latin grammar-school textbooks of Charles Butler, Thomas Farnaby, John Clarke, and William Dugard went through more editions among seventeenth-century British works on rhetoric. A dictionary of rhetorical terms, The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvail'd owes its popularity in part to its systematic organization and accessibility to readers. Each figure of speech is defined meticulously and then illustrated with three kinds of examples: secular Latin, secular English, and scriptural. A lengthy table of contents guides the reader through the many rhetorical terms. Although Smith is often criticized for his plagiarism of previous writers, such as Henry Peacham, Dudley Fenner, and Thomas Blount, his book is recognized as a useful tool for students of Renaissance British...