V

THE RENAISSANCE

[By ARUNDELL ESDAILE]

PERHAPS the chief event of the past year in the period covered by this section is that now both those 'first reformers of our English metre and stile' have been re-edited. Miss A. K. Foxwell's edition of Wyatt 1,2 would have been noticed in the Year Book had it appeared 'according to plan'; it is now seven years old. But I am glad to have an excuse for mentioning it. That excuse is the appearance of a sound edition of Surrey,3 3 Wyatt's successor in the poetic movement. Neither had been edited since Yeowell's Aldine editions, which were largely based on G. F. Nott's. Surrey's editor is Mr. F. M. Padelford, who as long ago as 1907 published an attractive little volume, at once popular and scholarly, of the lyrics of that generation, and also printed the MSS. of Surrey in Anglia (vol. xxix). The new edition stands by the text and notes, for the life of Surrey prefixed is not new, and is badly overwritten. The text is, as we should expect, based on a most careful examination of the sources. Mr. Padelford's notes are divided into textual and critical. Both are, in the main, valuable; but in the former we miss a reference for each poem to all its sources; on the other hand, we could spare the entire poems of Horace and Martial quoted in the latter. It is to be hoped that Mr. Padelford may reissue this important edition in a more accessible and a more attractive form for the general reader.

1 A. K. Foxwell, A Study of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poetry. London University Press, 1911. 5s. net.

2 The Poems of Sir Thomas Wiat, edited by A. K. Foxwell, ib., 1918. 2 vols.

21s.

• The Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. [Ed. by] Frederick Morgan Padelford, University of Washington Publications, vol. i, Seattle, 1920. $2 (bd. $3).

4

The last obstacle in the way of Surrey's text was cleared for Mr. Padelford by the publication in the Modern Language Review by Miss Gladys Willcock of a collection of all the three known texts of his Aeneids, including Day's edition of the Fourth Book [1554?], of which the unique copy in the Britwell Library, though still unsold, has been inaccessible for some time. Dr. Rudolf Immelmann's Anfänge des Blankverses (Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, 1905) was vitiated by neglecting this text. Not only is it the earliest printed, but Tottel's editor, who so 'mismetred' Wyatt's and Surrey's poems in the Songs and Sonnets, may quite well be responsible for the variants in the 1557 text of the Aeneid.

A general literary study of the poetry of this period, Early Tudor Poetry, by Mr. J. M. Berdan, of Yale, has reached us too late to be adequately considered, but it is a work of solid erudition, and, as far as we have been able to test it, of admirable critical taste and acumen. The book consists of six essays, on The Background to Literature, The Mediaeval Tradition, The Scholastic Tradition, Humanism, The Influence of Contemporary Literatures, and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. This last chapter is perhaps the best in the book; in it, amongst other matters, the old theory of Wyatt's and Surrey's joint labours is very thoroughly disposed of by arguments of which some are new to the present writer and quite convincing, were conviction needed.

Mr. Berdan excludes any consideration of the drama as having been thoroughly worked by others. But this is, in fact, much less true of the early Tudor interludes than of the full-grown Elizabethan drama. In this field a sensational episode falls to us to record, in the discovery at Mostyn Hall, sale at Sotheby's for £3,400, export to America, and reappearance in an excellent facsimile reprint, of the only known copy (except a fragment of

• Gladys D. Willcock, A Hitherto Uncollated Version of Surrey's Translation of the Fourth Book of the Aeneid. (Modern Language Review, April 1919 and April 1920.)

John M. Berdan, Early Tudor Poetry, 1485-1547. (Studies in Tudor Literature.) Macmillan Co., N.Y., 1920. £1. 6s. net.

two leaves in the British Museum) of Medwall's Fulgens and Lucres (Rastell [1520 ?]), which is not only of some intrinsic merit but is the first English secular play, dating probably from the last years of the fifteenth century. At the time of the sale Mr. A. W. Reed (whose studies of the Heywood-Rastell circle in The Library appeared just too soon to be more than mentioned here) contributed an account of this interlude to the Times Literary Supplement. The facsimile is prefaced by a brief but thorough note by Mr. Seymour de Ricci.

In making available important Middle Scots texts of this period considerable activity has been shown by the Scottish Text Society, which seems to have recovered from the war with more speed than most learned societies. Dr. W. A. Craigie has edited for the Society the two Maitland MSS.,9,10 the Folio and the Quarto, in the Pepysian Library, which have never before been printed entire, and for the most part (except for the poems from Dunbar, who was edited by Small in 1884) not since the Maitland Club volume of 1830. The second volume of the Folio, containing Dr. Craigie's introduction, is still to come. The Maitland MSS. have been followed by The Thre Prestis of Peblis,11 edited by Mr. T. D. Robb; the editor in a careful introduction suggests some time between 1484 and 1488 (a sufficiently narrow margin) for the disputed date of completion of the poem.

In the same field, but work of a very different calibre from

Henry Medwall, Fulgens and Lucres, a godely interlude of the disputacyon of noblenes. With an introductory note by Seymour de Ricci. (The Henry E. Huntington Facsimile Reprints.) 1920. G. D. Smith, N.Y.; Quaritch. £1.

7 Times Literary Supplement, April 3, 1919.

› Pieces from the Makculloch and Gray MSS., together with the Chepman and Myllar Prints, edited by G. S. Stevenson. (Scottish Text Society.j 1918.

9 The Maitland Folio Manuscript, edited by W. A. Craigie, vol. i (Text). (Scottish Text Society.) 1919.

10 The Maitland Quarto Manuscript, edited by W. A. Craigie. (Scottish Text Society.) 1920.

11 The Thre Prestis of Peblis, edited from the Asloan and Charteris Texts by T. D. Robb. (Scottish Text Society.) 1920.

these, is a large volume by the Rev. L. M. Watt on Douglas's Aeneid,12 a subject on which there was room (as on how few subjects is there not?) for a good book. Mr. Watt has laboured honestly at Douglas's MSS., and at the vicissitudes of his fame, on which and on some other matters this book may perhaps be useful as a compendium, and it is therefore mentioned here; but he has many of the faults of an amateur. He does not know how much his readers know, and indulges in pages on pages of elementary (and often dubious) information; a good example is the reappearance of the old story of the surreptitious texts of Shakespeare-Mr. Watt has not heard of Messrs. Pollard and Dover Wilson's work. Worse still are his efforts

at fine writing.

12 Lauchlan Maclean Watt, Douglas's Aeneid. Cambridge University Press, 1920. 14s. net.

VI

SHAKESPEARE AND ELIZABETHAN

DRAMA

[By SIDNEY LEE]

THERE has been considerable activity in Shakespearian research and criticism during the period under review. Most of the results deserve careful consideration, though few of them are likely to command unqualified assent. A suspense of judgement seems desirable in regard to some recent notable deductions from the punctuation of the early editions of Shakespeare's work, and a new and elaborate theory of Shakespeare's versification would appear to rest on questionable foundations.

Of pre-Shakespearian drama Gammer Gurton's Needle1 has been included in the attractive series of 'Percy reprints' which Mr. Basil Blackwell, of Oxford, recently inaugurated under the editorship of Mr. Brett-Smith with the issue of Thomas Nashe's Unfortunate Traveller. In agreement with the principle of this series, Mr. Brett-Smith reproduces with strict accuracy the text of the original edition of this boisterous domestic farce which appeared in 1575. Only three copies of the first edition seem to be now known and the present editor naturally follows the copy in the Bodleian. Mr. Brett-Smith is sparing of annotation, but in a few notes at the end of the book he briefly solves the main difficulties which the average reader will find in the language of the piece. The editorial Introduction and 'Bibliographical Note' supply much pertinent information. Mr. Brett-Smith accepts Dr. Henry Bradley's identification of the author with William

1 Gammer Gurton's Needle, by Mr. S., Mr. of Art, edited by H. F. B. Brett-Smith. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1920. Sm. 8vo. xv+88 pp. 4s. 6d. (Percy Reprints, No. 2.)

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