Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/319

 by Carl Horstmann from the Trin. College MS., and the 1533 imprint (Berlin). 11. ‘The Legend of St. Edmund and Fremund’ (3,693 lines of rhyme royal). An illuminated manuscript, apparently the dedication copy, is Harl. MS. 2278. (Cf. Harl. MS. 372, 4826; Ashmol. MS. 46; Tanner MS. 347 [Edmund only]; and MS. belonging to Lord Mostyn— Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 350). It was printed by Horstmann in ‘Altenglische Legenden,’ Neue Folge (pp. 376–445), along with 464 ‘Verses commemorating Miracles wrought by St. Edmund in 1441 and 1444’ (cf. Retrospective Review, new ser. i. 98, 100). Another edition by Dr. Axel Erdmann is announced by the Early English Text Society (cf., i. 523, 537). 12. ‘A Goodly Narrative how St. Augustine the Apostle of England raised two Dead Bodies at Long Compton, collected out of divers authors’ (408 lines), printed at Canterbury, 4to, before 1520 (no copy known), and in Halliwell, p. 135 (cf. Harl. MS. 2255, ff. 24, 32). 13. ‘Life of St. Giles’ (368 lines of rhyme royal), printed in Horstmann, ii. 368 sq. (cf. Harl. MS. 2255, f. 95, and Lansd. MS. 699, ff. 2–3, imperfect). 14. ‘Life of St. Margarete,’ written in 1430 (540 lines), printed in Horstmann, ii. 371 sq. (cf. MS. in Bishop Cosin's Libr. Durham, and Addit. MS. 29729 f. 170 b.)

IV. .—15. ‘Court of Sapience’ (2, 282 lines of rhyme royal). The chief manuscript is at Trin. Coll. Cambr., formerly the property of Stowe. It was printed as ‘Curia Sapientiæ, or the Court of Sapience, in ballad royal’ [n. p. or d.], by Caxton, 1481? (St. John's Coll. Oxf. and Althorpe), and by W. de Worde in 1510 (cf. Addit. MS. 29729). A new edition by Dr. Borsdorf was long ago announced by Early Eng. Text. Soc. 16. ‘Secreta Secretorum,’ ‘Secrees of Old Philosoffres,’ a rendering in rhyme royal of a mediæval treatise on the training of princes wrongly assigned to Aristotle, and said to have been written at the request of Alexander the Great. Lydgate depended on one of the many Latin prose versions, with possibly one of the French prose manuscripts. Hoccleve derived his ‘De Regimine Principum’ from a like source, and Gower a digression in his ‘Confessio,’ bk. vii. Lydgate only translated detached portions of the work, and it was edited and completed by his disciple, Benedict Burgh [q. v.] Lydgate's part in the completed versions ends with the end of the 213th stanza and with the line Deth al consumyth, whych may nat be. Immediately after it the manuscripts have the rubric, ‘Here deyed this translatour and nobyl poete, and the yonge folwere gan his prologe on this wyse.’ Lydgate's share extends to 1,484 lines and Burgh's to 1,239. The chief manuscripts are: Sloane MS. 2464; Addit. MS. 14408 (dated 1473); Harl. MS. 4826, ff. 52a–81a; Arundel MS. 59, ff. 90a–130b (written about 1470); Harl. MS. 2251, ff. 188 b–224a. See also manuscripts belonging to the Earl of Ashburnham (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. pt. iii. 107, ‘A Booke of the Governour of Kings or Princes’). The work was printed from the Sloane MS. 2464, for the Early Eng. Text. Soc. (1893), under the editorship of Mr. Robert Steele. 17. ‘Medicina Stomachi,’ or the ‘Diatory’ (81 lines), in alternate rhyme, a poem, printed by Caxton with ‘The Governal of Health,’ 1489? 4to (Bodl.) The whole volume was reprinted by William Blades in 1850. The Harl. MS. 116 assigns the poem to Lydgate. Very similar verses by Lydgate are known as ‘Rules for Preserving Health’ (, p. 66; and Lansd. MS. 699), and are adapted from the ‘Secreta.’

V. .—18. ‘The Assembly of Gods’ (2,107 lines of rhyme royal), thrice printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1498 (Brit. Mus.), between 1498 and 1500 (Cambr. Univ. Libr.); and in 1500 (Brit. Mus.), as ‘Assemble de Dyeus,’ with the ‘Story of Thebes’ and ‘Temple of Glas’ (Brit. Mus. and Cambr. Univ. Libr.); again as ‘The Interpretacyon of the Natures of Goddys and Goddesses, as is rehersed in this treatyse followyng as poetes wryte,’ by Richard Pynson, n.d., and by Robert Redman (n.d., 4to, and 1540, 16mo). Prudentius's ‘Psychomachia’ may have been used by Lydgate. A new edition was issued by the Early English Text Soc. in 1896. 19. ‘The Temple of Glas,’ wrongly claimed for Stephen Hawes [q. v.] (cf. at Oxford, Tanner MS. 346; Fairfax MS. 16; Bodl. 638; at Cambridge, Magd. Coll., Pepys, 2006; Univ. Libr. Gg. 4. 27; Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 16165; and at Longleat, Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. pp. 188–9). It was printed by Caxton, 1479 (?) (Cambr. Univ. Libr.); thrice by Wynkyn de Worde (Brit. Mus., Advocates' Library, Edinb., and Duke of Devonshire's Library); by R. Pynson, 1500 (?), 4to (Bodl., fragments), and by Berthelet, n.d. (Bodl.). It was reprinted by Early Eng. Text Soc. in 1892, and the first edition appeared in facsimile at Cambridge in 1905. ‘A temple ymad of glas’ figures in Chaucer's ‘House of Fame,’ ll. 119–120. 20. ‘Æsop’ (959 lines of rhyme royal); a version of seven fables, possibly written while Lydgate was at Oxford, about 1387 (cf. Harl. MS. 2251, ff. 283 sq.; Ashmol. MS.