Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/74

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NOTES AND Q UER1E8. [12 s. vi. MARCH, 1920.

entered, and of which he so gloriously availed himself. Yet from his death up till 1814 he had remained, in the estimate of the uncritical, sole and undisputed master of this branch of literature. It is just a hundred years, says Mr. Dods in the open- ing of his Volume, * since Dante enjoyed unchal- lenged the credit of having not only composed but invented the various pictures of his Divine Comedy. The first serious assailant of his originality was a countryman of his own, one Francesco Cancellieri, who, in 1814. accused the poet of copying the details of Purgatory and Hell from a certain manuscript which his learned critic then published for the first time.' t Four years later Ollgo Foscolo poured out the vials of his wrath upon the attack in the Edin- burgh Review (vol. xxx bept., 1818), but inadvisably, for later still both Ozanam and Labitte showed Dante's indebtedness to his precursors in Eschat- ology, the former stating calmly :

"II trouvait cette tradition dans un cycle entier de legendes, de songes, d 'apparitions, de voyages au monde invisible, ou revenaient toutes les scenes de la damnation et de la beatitude Sans, doute il devaient mettre 1'ordre etla lumiere dans ce chaos, mais il fallait qu'avant lui le chaos existat.".

Though, as the first sentence of my quoted remarks shows, I shared these views in 1JI 12, I have since found reason, based on the logical fallacy cited above, to revise them. Plump tre's charge of indebtedness is, of course, more serious than Tozer's, but I now regard both as without proof. This not infrequent similarity of thought in literary compositions is to me but an interesting coincidence of cerebration. That such a phenomenon is a commonplace of all literatures need not, nor does it necessarily, imply conscious imitation, still less un- blushing plagiarism for which indebtedness is but a euphuism. But modern critics will not have it so. Given certain simi- larities of plot and ideas between authors engaged on the same subject-matter, and incontinently servile assimilation if not downright pilfering is scented. The tall talk about turning other men's dross into gold does not change the fact that it is the negation of creative power. Perforce this gift is conceded to Shakespeare and Dante, but an enlightened criticism must exact, on the strength of modern discoveries, a more than undesigned coincidence in the striking kinship of matter and treatment between their own productions and those of writers on similar themes, whether pre-existing or contemporaneous. So, while the former drew upon Holinshead's and other Chronicles for the plots of his plays and tinkered raw ones from unskilled pens as pot-boilers, %


 * 'Forerunners of Dante.' Marcus. Dods, 1903.

t ' Osservazioni sopra 1'originalita della Divina Commedia di Dante.' Roma, 1814.

$ As parts of 'Cymbeline' R. Whing in the Manchester Quardian, Jan. 10, 1920

Dante owed his inspiration to Cancellieri' a " certain manuscript " and many other like compositions. This is the verdict of our modern quidnuncs from which I venture to dissociate myself.

As a final word upon these lines it is worth noting that Dr. Moore supplies but the subjoined verbal variants thereupon : exempra AA. ; asfsempla F. ; sempra M. ; poco basta F. ; e la sua CDI. ; prima tempra A.E. ; pera CDKLM.

J. B. McGovEBN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

CORNISH AND DEVONIAN PRIESTS EXECUTED.

(See 12 S. v. 96, 131, 183, 243, 332.)

IN April of last year a request was made in ' N. &.Q.' concerning the name of a West Country priest who was executed in 1548. An answer was given the following May, that the priest was Martin Geoffrey who took part in the Western rebellion. In private correspondence on the above sub- ject the name of a George Stocker was frequently mentioned ; this man led a very adventurous life in the religious persecu- tions towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, as the three last references prove. Although in the list printed by Strype (Ann. III. 2-600) George Stocker' s name occurs under the heading, " These persons are Seminary priests, being taken upon the seas or in prison at the time of the statute," I am inclined to agree that he was not a priest but a lay gentleman. In 1851 his name occurs more than once among the ' Pilgrims from England to Rome ' ( Collectanea Typographica et Genealogica, vol. ii. p. 79). In a letter from the Scottish Jesuit Creighton to the Italian Jesuit Alfonse Aggazia, who in March, 1579, had been appointed Rector of the English College at Rome, George Stocker is mentioned, and there is little doubt but at that time he was secretly communicating with persons who were con- spiring against Elizabeth ; at that time he was said to be a gentleman living' in exile with the Earl of Westmoreland. He had then doubtless for some time been suspected and kept under observation. In 1586 the Babbington conspiracy (fixed for Aug. 24. Chambers) failed, and the conspirators scattered in every direction.

Many were apprehended, and fourteen persons were executed for it on Sept. 20