A Literary History of the English People Part 60

[865] Or in the worthy Margaret's spelling: "Yf I mythe have had my wylle, I xulde a seyne yow er dystyme; I wolde ye wern at hom, yf it wer your ese, and your sor myth ben as wyl lokyth to her as it tys there ye ben, now lever dan a goune thow it wer of scarlette." (Sept 28, 1443, vol. i. p. 49).

[866] Sept. 21, 1465, vol. ii. p. 237.

[867] _E.g._, "The Itineraries of William Wey" (pilgrimages), London, Roxburghe Club, 1857; much practical information; specimens of conversations in Greek, &c.; "The Stacions of Rome," ed. Furnivall, E.E.T.S, 1868 (on Rome and Compostella).

[868] See among others: "Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies," by Th. Wright, ed. Wulcker, London, 1884, 2 vols. 8vo; "Promptorium Parvulorum, sive clericorum ... _circa_ A.D. 1440," ed. Albert Way, Camden Society, 1865, 4to, by Geoffrey the Grammarian, a Dominican of Norfolk; "Catholicon Anglic.u.m, an English Latin wordbook, dated 1483,"

ed. Herrtage, E.E.T.S., 1881, 8vo.

[869] In the "Political Poems," ed. Th. Wright, Rolls, vol. ii. p. 157.

Probable date, 1436. _Cf._ the "Debat des herauts de France et d'Angleterre," (written about 1456), ed. P. Meyer, Societe des Anciens Textes, 1877, 8vo; on the navy, p. 9.

[870] "De Dominio regali et politico." In it he treats of (chap. i.) "the difference between Dominium regale and Dominium politic.u.m et regale," a difference that consists princ.i.p.ally in this, that in the second case the king "may not rule hys people by other lawys than such as they a.s.senten unto." Fortescue was born about 1395, and died after 1476. He wrote in Latin a treatise, "De natura Legis Naturae," and another, "De laudibus Legum Angliae."--"Works of Sir John Fortescue ...

now first collected," by Thomas [Fortescue] Lord Clermont, London, 1869, 2 vols. 4to.

[871] Chaps. xii. and xiii., vol. i. pp. 465 ff.

[872] In his princ.i.p.al work, the "Repressor of over much blaming of the Clergy," ed. Babington, Rolls, 1860, 2 vols. 8vo. Pec.o.c.k was born about 1395; he was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, bishop of St. Asaph, then bishop of Chichester. He wrote, besides the "Repressor," a quant.i.ty of works ("Donet"; "Book of Faith"; "Follower of Donet," &c., unpublished), also in English prose. The Church found that he went too far, and allotted too great a part to reason; his writings were condemned and burnt; he was relegated to the abbey of Thorney in 1459, and died there a short time after.

[873] "Repressor," i, ch. xix.

[874] "The Boke of St. Albans, by Dame Juliana Berners, containing treatises on hawking, hunting and cote armour, printed at St. Albans, by the Schoolmaster printer in 1486, reproduced in fac simile," by W.

Blades, London, 1881, 4to (partly in verse and partly in prose; adapted from the French).--"A Chronicle of England" (from the creation to 1417), by Capgrave, born in 1394, died in 1464, ed. Hingeston, Rolls, 1858. (Of the same, a "Liber de ill.u.s.tribus Henricis," in Latin, ed. Hingeston, Rolls, 1858, and other works; see above, p. 496.) "A Book of the n.o.ble Historyes of Kynge Arthur and of certen of his Knyghtes," printed by Caxton in 1485; reprinted with notes ("Le Morte Darthur," by Sir Thomas Malory) by O. Sommer and Andrew Lang, London, 1889, 2 vols. 8vo. Malory and Caxton will be mentioned again in connection with the Renaissance.

[875] The "Testament of Love," in English prose. It has been attributed to Chaucer. Mr. Skeat has shown, by deciphering an anagram, that the author's name was Kitsun: "Margaret of Virtw have mercy on Kitsun"

(_Academy_, March 11, 1893).

[876] He has not observed, he admits, "the strict laws of time," and he has introduced no chorus; but it is not his fault. "Nor is it needful, or almost possible in these our times, and to such auditors as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state and splendor of dramatic poems, with preservation of any popular delight."--_To the readers._

[877] H. Vast, "Le Cardinal Bessarion," Paris, 1878, 8vo, p. 14.