Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/360

 298 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. OCT. 7.«» valuable 'St. Martin's Scrap-Book' in the St. Martin's Library, but I forget which volume. I think the date of this handbill is about 1780. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. PREMONSTRA.TENSIAN ABBEYS (10th S. iv. 169, 231).—There appears to be only one more house to add to the list of Premonstratensian abbeys in order to render it complete, and that is Stirwould or Stykeswold, in Lincoln- shire. Originally a Cistercian nunnery, it was suppressed 27 Hen. VIII., but refounded by the king for a prioress and nuns of the Premonstratensian Order. After two years' existence it was finally suppressed with the greater monasteries. HERBERT C. ANDREWS. 13, Narbonne Avenue, S. W. NOTES ON BOOKS, &o. Peda>itiiu: a Latin Comedy formerly ac.lrd in Trinity Colleyt, Cambritlge. Edited by G. C. Moore Smith. (Louvain, Uystpruyst; London, Nutt.) Sen Jonnon's Every Man in hi* Humor. Reprinted from the Quarto of 1601 by W. Bang and W. W. Greg. (Same publishers.) Sludien ul>er Shakespeare* Wirkimg anf -eilgenvn- sinche Dramatiktr. Von E. Koeppel. (Same publishers.) THESE three works constitute the latest additions to the " Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Eng- lischen Dramas" of Prof. W. Bang, to the merits of which we drew attention 10th S. iii. 138. As we have stated, they are issued under the sanction of the University of Louvain, in which great insti- tution Herr Bang is Professor of English Philology. Among the many claims of the series must now be mentioned the rapidity of production, the quickness with which separate publications suc- ceed each other setting an example to our English publishing societies. First printed in 12mo in 1631, ' Pedantius' is known to be forty years- Mr. Moore Smith will have it fifty years—earlier in date. A fairly full account of the play is given in the ' Biographia Dramatica' of Baker, Reed, and Jones, 1812. a work of more authority than is generally assigned it (see under 'Latin Plays written by English Authors,1 vol. iii. p. 4.38). The latest editor has, however, added greatly to the information previously supplied, and has fur- nished a long and erudite introduction, which is sound in view and ingenious in conjecture. A reference to the first performance of • Pedantius' is found in the fourteenth book of Harington's translation of the 'Orlando Furioso,' 1591. The performance in question took place in Trinity College, Cambridge, at what date is not known. Sir John says concerning it that he "remembers" that " the noble Earle of Essex that now is was present," a form of speech which Mr. Moore Smith rightly construes as meaning that it took place at some date no longer reoent. 'Pedantius' is. as Nashe tells u» in his ' Have with you to Saffron Viiliii;n,' a satire on Gabriel Harvey, who at the time conjecturally assigned to the performance was at the height of his well-earned unpopularity in Cambridge. ' Pedantius' is ascribed by Nash, in Strange News,' to M. Wingfield or Winktield, the M. being erroneously extended to Matthew. On the other hand, the Caius MS. of the play assigns t to M™ Forcet, in whom our editor finds Edward Forsett, a controversialist, and opponent of Kobert Parsons. Other claims to authorship are advanced, Dut Mr. Moore Smith holds that the responsibility belongs to Anthony Wingfield or Edward Fqrsett, without deciding which. In favour of the claims of Walter Hawkesworth may be cited the ' Athene Jantabrigienses' and Mr. Gordon Goodwin, the writer of the memoir of Hawkesworth in the ' D.N.B." A good case is made out by the latest writer, who supplies a curious chapter of literary history. A facsimile of the title-page of the printed 'Pedantius' is given, as is a second of the illus- tration presenting the portraits of Pedantius and Dromodotus. In reprinting the 1601 quarto of Jonson's ' Every Man in his Humor' Messrs. Bang and Greg have rendered a signal service to the stage. The same Jlay is included in the reprint of the 1616 folio of en Jonson, the second instalment of which is eagerly expected. We dare not assume a know- ledge on the part of the general reader that a wide difference exists between the quarto and the folio. The Master of Peterhouse holds that the issue of the former was surreptitious. This may well enough be, though we should be glad to know the reasons existing for the supposition. In the quarto, now reissued, the scene of the action is Italy, and the characters subsequently known as Knu'well, Brayne-worm, Kitely, and so forth, are Lorenzo di Paz7.i Senior, Prospero, Giulliano, 4c. The dialogue is also different, passages of extreme im- portance appearing in one and being excluded from the other. A prologue, which first appears in the folio, is eminently Jonsonian, and contains unmis- takable references to Shakespeare. The altera- tions are, indeed, too numerous to be indicated. No less important, in a different way, are the Shakespearian studies of Herr Koeppel, which merit the close consideration of our readers, and show a wide range of study. It is difficult to overestimate the value of the uurk that Prof.Bang is accomplishing, and we once more commend to our readers a publication the like of which from our own press we do not possess. Ewayi in the Art of Writing. By Robert Louis Stevenson. (Chatto & Windus.) THE new volume added to the authorized edition of the works of Stevenson consists of articles con- tributed between 1881 and 1889 to The Foitnightltr lii.vieu The Contemporary, The, Magazine of Art, and other periodicals. So far as these are auto- biographical—and they are so to a great extent— they are valuable as well as delightful. When they are expository or instructive, they are worthy of attention, though not invariably con- vincing. The opening sentence in the volume, the first article in which is 'On some Technical Elements of Style in Literature,' is at once exaggerated and inaccurate. It rnns: "There is nothing more disenchanting to man than t1' be shown the springs and mechanism of any art- To this we answer that there are thousands of things infinitely more disenchanting, and that to