Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/123

 io"-s.ii.JiT.v3o,i904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

i. 31S). Even more worthy of the honours awarded it is Sidney's masterly tractate, the most interesting and valuable of those early critical essays of which a collection has recently appeared from the sister press of Oxford. The present edition is taken from a copy, presumedly unique, of the edition entered in the registers of the Stationers' Company 29 Nov., 1594, to William Ponsonby. The earliest edition recognized in the 'Bibliographer's Manual' of Lowndes, in Mr. Hazlitt's ' Bibliography of Old English Literature,' and in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' is of 1595. It were futile to attempt any praise of a work which, if we make allowance for a little pedantry characteristic of the epoch, has stood the test of time, and remains a just and noble utterance, and, to some extent, a counterblast to Roger Ascham as well as to Stephen Gosson, whom it was designed to answer. In our own collecting days, before the times of Arber and suchlike benefactors, it was, like the 'Astrophel and Stella' (which we might commend for a com- panion volume), only obtainable in folio at the close of later editions of the ' Arcadia,' and to see it set before the modern bookbuyer in so exquisite a shape awakens a kind of reactionary jealousy. As in the case of the ' Microcoamographie,' 225 copies only have been printed for England and America, and the lype has been distributed. It is a pleasure to the bibliophile to welcome this new and honour- able step upon the part of the Cambridge Press, and those who possess a collection of early master- pieces such as this series is likely to form will be able, after rejoicing in a text which it is a delight to contemplate and a luxury to read, to have the further gratification of watching the successive volumes advance in value and figure in lists of desiderata.

The History of Queen Elizabeth', Amy Robsart, and the Earl of Leicester. Being a Reprint of * Ley- cester's Commonwealth,' 1641. Edited by Frank T. Burgoyne. (Longmans & Co.) A REPRINT of * Leycester's Commonwealth ' is a welcome addition to our historical stores. Its value as evidence is nil, and its reputed authorship inaccurate. The allegations it contained have, in spite of the contradictions of Queen Elizabeth, coloured most contemporary and subsequent record, and the chief claim to consideration of the volume is that it represents faithfully the sentiment gener- ally entertained against this presumptuous, arro- gant, false-hearted, and craven noble. First printed, supposedly at Antwerp, in 1584, with an elaborate title beginning 'The Copie of a Letter written by a Master of Arte in Cambrige to his Friend in London,' the work was attributed to Robert Par- sons, the well-known Jesuit. In his ' Royal and Noble Authors' Horace Walpole says that "it was pretended" that Lord Burleigh who was, indeed, one of Leicester's numerous and powerful enemies supplied the information on which it is based. These things are more than doubtful. More than anything else it contributed to fasten upon Leicester the reproach of the murder of Amy Robsart and many other crimes, concerning his complicity in which there is no evidence. It depicts Leicester, in- deed, as a monster of vice and wickedness. A French translation, issued the following year, has the title,


 * Discours de la vie abominable, ruses, trahisons

desquelles a use et use journellement le mylord de Lecestre, machiaveliste, contre 1'honneur de Dieu, la majest6 de la reine d'Angleterre,' &c., copies

being in the La Valliereand MacCarthy collections ; and a later version, 'Flores Calvinistici decerpti ex vita Roberti Dudlei, comitis Leicestrire,' was published at Naples the same year. Elizabeth issued an Order in Council forbidding the sale of the English work. Mr. Burgoyne, the editor of the reprint, who is also librarian of the Lambeth Public Libraries, says that careful watch was kept at the ports, and many copies were destroyed. As a con- sequence of this, it was much copied, and MSS. are more common than the printed book. In 1641 it was reprinted in 4to and 8vo, after which time it seems to be a very uncommon book. It then bore the title of ' Leycester's Commonwealth, whereunto is added Leicester's Ghost,' the latter a poem with separate pagination. It is from the 4to edition of 1641 that the present reprint is taken. The poem,, not forming an integral portion of that edition, is not now given. No student of Tudor times can afford) to neglect this curious and, in a sense, edifying: work. A reprint of it in a handsome library form- is a boon to the public, the original edition being still difficult of access, and one or two early eigh- teenth-century reprints being, as is ordinarily the case with such, of small value.

The Scottish Historical Review. July. (Glasgow

MacLehose & Sons.)

THE present issue opens with an excellent paper on- 'The Danish Ballads,' by Prof. W. P. Ker, in which he endeavours to show that the ballad literature of Denmark is far more indebted to France, or perhaps it would be safer to say to the Latin races, than to- Scotland or England. That this is so we see no- reason to question ; in fact, it would seem that the writer has well-nigh demonstrated the truth of his belief; but how this has come to pass remains a mystery that he has left unsolved. The relations of Scandinavia with Scotland must have been far more intimate in the times when the ballads were being formed than they were with France.

' The Lady Anne Bothwell ' is an account of the first wife of the notorious Earl of Bothwell, contri- buted by the Rev. J. Beveridge. Bothwell, when in Denmark, on his way to France on a political mission, encountered the celebrated Admiral Chris- topher Throndsson. He for some reason or other we cannot suppose love had much to do with it so far as he was concerned married the admiral's fifth daughter, the Lady Anne. We need not say- that he deserted her. The marriage was unques- tionably good in law, but that did not hinder him from contracting two other unions. Prof. Daae has, as Mr. Beveridge informs us, suggested that the beautiful ballad known as * Lady Anne Both- well's Lament ' relates to the heartless desertion of this lady. This does not appear to be at all improbable. The late Prof. Aytoun, in his ' Ballads of Scotland,' said that it referred to an intrigue between Anne, a daughter of Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who performed the marriage ceremony between Queen Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, and one of the Erskines, a son of the Earl of Mar. The matter requires further sifting that the ballad is genuine does not admit of doubt. When did it make its first appearance in manuscript or print ?

Miss Mary Bateson contributes a paper, manifest- ing great research, on the mediaeval stage, Mr. A. H. Millar one on the Scottish forefathers of President Roosevelt, and Mr. David MacRitchie on the Celtic trews.