The Acting Secretary presented a request from the chairman of the Joint Committee on a Phonetic English Alphabet, that the Association be represented at a conference on this subject to be held in New York City in April, 1910, and moved that Professors Sheldon, Thomas, and Weeks be requested to confer with the Joint Committee at the meeting aforesaid. The motion was adopted. On behalf of the Executive Council the Acting Secretary nominated for Honorary Membership in the Association Joseph Bédier, Professor at the Collège de France, and Benedetto Croce, Secretary of the Neapolitan Historical Society, and editor of the review, La Critica; and they were unanimously elected. The Treasurer of the Association, Mr. W. G. Howard, submitted the following report: The President of the Association, Professor M. D. Learned, appointed the following committees: (1) To audit the Treasurer's report: Professors G. M. Harper and A. K. Hardy. (2) To nominate officers: Professors F. N. Scott, H. S. White, and Kenneth McKenzie. The reading of papers was then begun. 1. "Italian Influence on Spanish Verse in the Sixteenth Century." By Dr. Arthur Gordon, of Cornell University. [The old style of Spanish verse: its characteristics and its vogue before the introduction of the Italian forms.-Scantiness of treatises.-Innovations introduced by Boscan and the Italianists.-Why the new forms remained permanently.-Opposition to the Italian influence by Castillejo and his adherents.-Changes in Spanish verse due to the acceptance of the Italian forms.-Twenty minutes.] This paper was discust by Professor J. Geddes, Jr. 2. "Shakspere's Use of Prose." By Professor Morris W. Croll, of Princeton University. [Three periods in the history of the use of prose in the Elizabethan drama: first (1586-1598), a period of rapid development from crude and popular origins, showing a sharp contrast between the uses of prose and the uses of verse; secondly (1599-1616), a period markt by new uses in imitation of courtly, academic, and Italian drama, and by á breaking down of the law of contrast; thirdly (1616-1642), a period of decline in the use of prose, due to the prevalence of Fletcher's form of verse, which is in effect a compromise between prose and verse. The influence of these tendencies upon Shakspere's usage, especially in the years between 1598 and 1608.-Many of his uses of prose, which have been subjectively explained, are referable to well-establisht dramatic convention.Twenty-five minutes.] This paper was discust by Professor W. H. Hulme. 66 3. Report on some Eschenburg Manuscripts." By Professor W. W. Florer, of the University of Michigan, and Mr. Carl E. Schreiber, of New York University. Read by Mr. Schreiber. [Lecture notes supplementing the well known outlines of Professor J. J. Eschenburg are in the possession of Mrs. Emma Schumann and Hon. Arnold Eschenburg. There are, among others, four volumes of closely written manuscript on the Theorie und Literatur der schönen Wissenschaften, two volumes on the Lehrbuch der Wissenschaftskunde, and two volumes of an Übersicht der klassischen Schriftsteller and Archäologie.-Fifteen minutes.] This paper was discust by Professor Learned. 4. "The Etymology of Bachelier." By Professor W. A. Stowell, of Amherst College. [Bachelier (0. F. Bacheler) is connected with Medieval Latin baccalaria. The baccalaria was not, as previous writers have maintained, a fief or tenure of which the baccalarius was the owner or occupant. The baccalaria was the pasture attacht to some inhabited agrarian division such as the manse, casa, etc. The etymology of baccalaria is vacca > vaccaria > vaccalia > vaccalaria > baccalaria.—Examples of the word in each of these stages.—The baccalarius was the cowherd.-The word baccalarius shifted from meaning "cowherd" to meaning a youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one years (the meaning of bacheler in the O. F. texts) because the chief occupation of the community was herding cattle, just as the O. F. word escuiers shifted from meaning "shieldbearer to meaning a noble youth between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one years" because the chief occupation of noble youths was carrying the shields of their elders.-Ten minutes.] 5. "The Source of Dryden's All for Love." By Professor William Strunk, Jr., of Cornell University. [Dryden conveys the impression that Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius were his sources for All for Love, and that Shakspere served him only as a model of style. It is demonstrable that he used none of these historical accounts, but used the last two acts of Shakspere's Antony and Cleopatra as practically his sole source.—Ten minutes.] This paper was discust by Dr. B. Q. Morgan. 6. "The Masque in Shakspere's Plays." By Professor J. W. Cunliffe, of the University of Wisconsin. [To appear in the next issue of the Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft.] [The paper endeavored to show that while the term (C masque " is used very loosely by Shaksperean critics, Shakspere himself uses it only in the strict sense defined by modern students of this form of court entertainment. It was suggested that for the sake of clearness the exacter usage should be followed in the criticism of Shakspere's plays.-Twenty minutes.] At eight o'clock on the evening of Tuesday, December 28, Professor Marion Dexter Learned, President of the Association, delivered in the amphitheatre of Goldwin Smith Hall an address on the subject, “"Linguistic Study and Literary Creation." After the address President and Mrs. Schurman received the members and guests of the Association at their residence, 41 East Avenue. After the reception the gentlemen of the Association gathered at the Town and Gown Club. |