Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/327

 us. iv. OCT. 21, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

321

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER SI, 1911.

CONTENTS. No. 95.

NOTES : ' Dives and Pauper,' 321 King's 'Classical Quota- tions,' 323' Howden Fair 'Wordsworth : " Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum ! " Thackeray and a Child, 325 Pepys Bobbed Hertfordshire Inscriptions " W " pronounced like "V" Earl of Tarras, 326 Mytton and Hard wick e MSS. Origin of Grosvenor Square Filey Bay Custom Aylraer's ' History of Ireland,' 327.

QUERIES : " Thon " : " Thonder " " Thorpsman " Crosby Hall Roof, 327 Omar Khayyam Bibliography- Barnard Family J. Downman : Barnard Curious Will, 1564 Welsh Canonized Saints Sainte-Beuve Jessie Brown and the Relief of Lucknow, 323 Authors Wanted Haldeman Surname Rhoscrowther Peter Pindar MSS. Oyster Club Lyons, Surgeon, 1725 Baron de Waller, 329 Pitt Family of Cosey Hall Kingsley and Browning Penge P. Courayer on Anglican Orders TJpham Latin Inscriptions Frost Arms Jefferson- Sampson Porch Inscription, 330.

REPLIES : Peers immortalized by Public-Houses, 331 Thackeray: Wray John Balliol, 333 Maida : Naked British Soldiers, 334 Fulani or Fulahs " Bombay Duck," 335 French Church in Threadneedle Street Watchmakers' Sons Henry Fielding " Tea and turn out," 336' Point of War ' " Grecian " in 1615 Authors Wanted-Sir J. Abbott HuldaF. Knibberch, 337 Heine and Byron Spanish Motto Paris Barriers, 338 Rev. T. Delafield Lord Beauchamp The Cuckoo 4 Persuasion 'Grand Khaibar Hamilton Kerby Street Nomenclature, 339.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'The Roman Era in Britain' 'Coriolanus.'

Notices to Correspondents.

'DIVES AND PAUPER.'

THE ' Dictionary of National Biography ' follows time-honoured tradition in accepting the attribution of the anonymous dialogue Parker, Carmelite of Doncaster, who died in 1470. But tradition, even if it reaches back to Bale, is a very dubious guide to truth, and it seems more than doubtful in this case if tradition has any foundation in reality.
 * Dives and Pauper ' to a certain Henry

Of Henry Parker's life and deeds the most adequate account is to be found in Gregory's Chronicle. He " was borne in Flete Strete, a skyner ys sone," and in 1464 was of such years as to be called " the yong fryer " (' Historical Collections of a Citizen of London,' pp. 228, 230). Nothing is said of his degree of Doctor of Divinity, nor of his authorship of the dialogue in question, nor of his death. The chronicler is interested only in the part the friar took in the acri- monious dispute in London concerning the

mendicancy of Christ and in the friar's London origin. Leland in his account of Parker (' Commentarii de Scriptoribus Bri- tannicis,' ed. 1709, p. 452) makes no allusion to ' Dives and Pauper ' ; and the untrust- worthy Bale is the first authority for the attribution (' Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Britanniae Summarium,' ed. 1559, p. 609). Bale is followed by Pits, Fabricius, Tanner, and others, including the * D.N.B.', which in turn is followed by ' The Cambridge History of English Literature ' (vol. ii., p. 321)". Incidentally, it may be mentioned the last-named work, doubtless by a slip describes the dialogue as finishing with a treatise on holy poverty.

' Dives and Pauper ' has been hitherto little used by historians, but he who would acquire a knowledge of fifteenth-century witchcraft and demonology, of fifteenth- century clergy and laymen, might read many books before he found so much to his purpose as is therein. He would, moreover, get no inconsiderable entertainment by the way, despite certain barren tracts of long-faded theology, unrelieved by disquisitions upon things of this world. For the reasons suggested above, to the student of social history and, for another reason which will afterwards appear, to the student of English literature the date of composition of the dialogue is a matter of some little importance, more particularly since its present ascription appears to be erroneous in point of time by about half a century ; it seems, in fact, that he who wrote the book was a contemporary not of Caxton, but of Chaucer.

Three MSS. of the dialogue are in the British Museum (Harl. 149, Reg. 17c. XX., and Reg. 17c, XXL), and another is in the Cathedral Library at Lichfield. If there are others extant, a fairly diligent search in the usual works of reference has failed to reveal them. Only two of these four MSS. (all, in various ways, incomplete) contain any note as to the identity of the author. On the first page of MS. Reg. 17c. XXI. there is, in a hand apparently of the seventeenth century, an inscription, " Hen- ricus Parker Monachus qui calruit Anno D. 1471 Author fuit istius libri " ; MS. Reg. 17c. XX. is similarly favoured ; but as the hand in each case is the same, and as the MSS. are both attributed by the Museum autho- rities to the first half of the fifteenth cen- tury, the statement, probably borrowed from Bale or some equally dependable source, is of no great value. Harley 149 (apparently a little later than the two Royal MSS.)