The Ship of Fools, Volume 1-2 - Sebastian Brant (thriller books to read TXT) 📗

of the Dialogue, or

Morality, by Bulleyn, than the one_, [which I have used], an account of and

some extracts from it may not be unpleasing.” The passage regarding the

poets is of course given ad longum.

 

The next notice of the Dialogue occurs in Herbert’s Ames (1786), where two

editions, 1564 and 1578, are entered. Dibdin (1819), in addition, notices

the edition of 1573. In the biographical accounts of Bulleyn in

Hutchinson’s Biographia Medica (1799), Aikin’s General Biog. Dict. (1801),

and its successor, Chalmers’s Biog. Dict. (1812), due mention is preserved

of the Dialogue in enumerating the works of its author. Sir Walter Scott

alludes to it in the Introduction to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

(1802) as a “mystery,” but his only knowledge of it is evidently derived

from Waldron. Chalmers’s Life of Lindsay (Poetical Works, 1806) has also

kept it prominently before a considerable class of inquirers, as he gives

that part of the description of the poets relating to Lindsay a conspicuous

place, with the following note: “Owing to the very obliging temper of Mr

Waldron I have been permitted to see that rare book of Dr Bulleyn, with

the second edition of 1569, which is remarkably different from the first in

1564.” To this use of it by Chalmers we owe the references to it in Lord

Lindsay’s Lives of the Lindsays, i. 261 (1849), Seton’s Scottish Heraldry,

480 (1863), and Notes and Queries, 3rd s., iv. 164 (1863). It was also

probably Chalmers that drew the attention of the writer of the Memoir of

Barclay in the Lives of the Scottish Poets (1822), to the possibility of

there being also in the Dialogue notice of that poet. At any rate, he

quotes the description of the early poets, showing in his preliminary

remarks considerable familiarity with Bulleyn’s history, pointing out the

probability of his having known Barclay at Ely, and arguing that whether or

not, “from living in the same neighbourhood he had an opportunity of

knowing better than any contemporary whose evidence on the subject is

extant, to what country Barclay was, by all about him, reputed to belong.”

He precedes his quotations thus: “As the whole passage possesses

considerable elegance, and has been so universally overlooked by the

critics, the transcription of it here will not probably be deemed out of

place.” No mention is made of the title of the book from which the

“Allegorical Description of the Early English Poets” is taken; hence it is

impossible to say whether the quoter made use of a copy of the Dialogue, or

of Waldron’s Notes. The spelling is modernised.

 

In various well-known bibliographical publications the existence of this

fugitive Dialogue is carefully registered, and its title, at least, made

known to all inquirers,—in Watt’s Bibliotheca Britt. (1824), in Lowndes’

Bibliog. Manual (1834), and in Atkinson’s Medical Bibliog. (1834); and by

the published Catalogues of the British Museum (1813), the Douce Collection

(1840), and the Bodleian Library (1843), it is made known that there are

copies of it preserved in these great collections. In Warton’s Hist. of

Eng. Poetry (ed. 1840), it is also recorded by Park, in his notes to the

chapter on Gower, in which he refers to Bulleyn’s visionary description of

that poet. Cooper’s Athenæ Cantabrigienses, art. Bulleyn (1858), also

carefully notes the Dialogue and its editions. And in 1865 Collier’s

well-known Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature again gives

an account (two pages long) of the much neglected production, in which the

passage relating to the poets is once more extracted in full, with the

preliminary remarks as quoted at p. xxvii. supra, but without the usual

announcement that the work has hitherto been unknown.

 

But in 1873, by the very last man from whom we might have expected it (F.

J. Furnivall, the Atlas on whose shoulders all our projects for the

preservation of our early literature rest, in Notes and Queries, 4th s.,

xii. 161), we are again introduced to this ever disappearing, ever

reappearing Dialogue as a fresh find in early English literature: “Few

things are pleasanter in reading old books than to come on a passage of

praise of our old poets, showing that in Tudor days men cared for the

‘makers’ of former days as we do still. To Mr David Laing’s kindness I owe

the introduction to the following quotation from a rare tract, where one

wouldn’t have expected to find such a passage,” and then follows once more

the whole passage so often quoted for the first time. Dr Rimbault, in an

interesting note in a succeeding number of Notes and Queries (p. 234), is

the first one acquainted with the Dialogue to state that “this amusing old

work is perfectly well known, and has often been quoted from.” So

henceforth we may presume that this interesting and long-fertile field of

discovery may be regarded as finally worked out.

 

[Illustration]

 

*

A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CATALOGUE OF

BARCLAY’S WORKS.

 

CONTENTS.

 

*

 

I. THE CASTELL OF LABOURE.

II. THE SHYP OF FOLYS.

III. THE EGLOGES.

IV. THE INTRODUCTORY.

V. THE MYRROUR OF GOOD MANERS.

VI. CRONYCLE COMPLYED BY SALUST.

VII. FIGURE OF OUR MOTHER HOLY CHURCH.

VIII. THE LYFE OF SAYNT GEORGE.

IX. THE LYFE OF SAYNTE THOMAS.

X. HAYTHON’S CRONYCLE.

 

I. THE CASTELL OF LABOURE.—Wynkyn de Worde. 1506. Small Quarto. Black

letter.

 

The title, “The castell of laboure,” is within a scroll above a woodcut

of men over a tub: on the verso, a cut of a man sitting at a desk. At

sign. a ii. (recto) “Here begynneth the prologue of this present

treatyse.” [The Brit. Mus. copy has this on the verso of the title

instead of the cut, a peculiarity which may entitle it to be called a

separate edition, though it appears to agree otherwise with the copy

described.] There are many curious woodcuts. Colophon on the reverse of

sign. i iii. (51^b): “Thus endeth the castell of labour, wherin is

rychesse, vertue, and honour. Enprynted at London in Fletestrete in the

sygne of the sonne. by Wynkyn de worde. Anno d[=n]i M.ccccc.vi.” There

is no indication of authorship. Signatures: a b c d e f g h,

alternately 8s and 4s, i 4; 52 leaves, not numbered. The British Museum

and Cambridge University Library copies of this book have been

collated, but as the former ends with H 3 and the latter wants the last

leaf, that leaf must remain undescribed. Mr Bradshaw, however, says,

“it almost certainly contained a woodcut on the recto, and one of the

devices on the verso.”

 

A copy of this very scarce book was sold among Mr. West’s books in 1773

for £2.

 

I.a. THE CASTELL OF LABOURE.—Pynson. No date. Small Quarto. Black letter.

 

The title, “Here begynneth the castell of laboure,” is over a woodcut;

and on the reverse is a woodcut; both the same as those in the previous

edition. In the body of the work there are 30 woodcuts, which differ

from those of the first edition, one of these (at G 6) is a repetition

of that on the title page. Colophon: “Thus endeth the castell of labour

wherin is rychesse, vertue and honoure. Enprynted be me Richarde

Pynson.” After the colophon comes another leaf (I 6), on the recto of

which is the printer’s device, and on the verso a woodcut representing

a city on the banks of a river. Without indication of authorship.

Signatures: A, 8 leaves; B—I, in sixes.

 

“Neither Ames nor Herbert appear to have seen this rare volume; which

is probably a reprint of Wynkyn de Worde’s impression of 1506.”

(Dibdin’s Typ. Antiq., II. 557.) There is a copy in the Library of H.

Huth, Esq.

 

*

 

II. THE SHIP OF FOLYS OF THE WORLDE.—Pynson. 1509. Folio.

 

On the recto of the first leaf there is a large woodcut of Pynson’s

arms, or device No. VII., similar to that which is on the reverse of

the last leaf of each of the volumes of his edition of Lord Berners’

translation of Froissart’s Chronicles; on the back of the first leaf is

the translator’s dedication to “Thomas Cornisshe, bishop of Tine, and

suffragan bishop of Bath;” on the next leaf begins “The regyster or

table of this present boke in Englyshe,” (all as on pp. cxiii.—cxx.),

succeeded by a Latin table. Then on sign. a i. and fol. i. a large

woodcut, the same as is used for the title page of Cawood’s edition

(and on p. 313, Vol. II.), with a Latin description in the margin.

Beneath is the title in Latin. On the back, “Alexander Barclay

excusynge the rudeness of his translacion,” followed with “An

exhortacion of Alexander Barclay.” Then on fol. ii., etc., follow in

Latin, “Epigramma,” “Epistola” in prose, and various “Carmina.” On the

back of fol. v. “The exhortacion of Brant to the fools” in Latin verse,

followed by Barclay’s version with the heading “Barclay the Translatour

tho the Foles.” On fol. iiii. the “Prologus Jacobi Locher … incipit,”

followed by its translation into English. On fol. ix., etc.,

“Hecatastichon in proludium auctoris et Libelli Narragonici” and the

English translation, “Here begynneth the prologe.” On xii. “The

Argument” in Latin and English, and then on xiii. commences the first

chapter, “De inutilibus libris,” in Latin, and then in English, which

is the order throughout, with the cuts at the beginning of either the

one or other as the page suited. The book concludes with a ballad in

honour of the virgin Mary, consisting of twelve octave stanzas: at the

end of which is the colophon in a stanza of seven lines. On the verso

of the last leaf is the printer’s device, No. v.

 

The Latin is uniformly printed in the Roman type, and the English in

the Gothic. Herbert supposes the diphthongs to be “the first perhaps

used in this kingdom.”

 

The cuts are rude, coarse, English imitations of those in the original

editions. They are, including the preliminary one, 118 in number. The

cut illustrating the chapter, “Of them that correct other,” etc., fol.

liii. has been exchanged with the cut of the succeeding chapter. The

cut illustrating “The unyuersall shyp and generall Barke,” fol.

cclxii., is repeated at the succeeding chapter. The one illustrating

Barclay’s new chapter “Of folys that ar ouer worldly” is an imitation

of the illustration of “De singularitate quorundam novorum fatuorum” in

the Latin edition of March 1497. The cut illustrating the ballad of the

Virgin appears in the original at the head of “Excusatio Jacobi Locher

Philomusi,” and illustrates, according to the margin, “Derisio boni

operis.”

 

The word “Folium” is on the left hand page, and the number, in Roman

capitals, on the right throughout the book; the last is cclxxiiii.

Including the dedication and table (4 folios) there are 283 folios. The

numbering is a model of irregularity: iiii. is repeated for vi., xx.

stands for xv., xviii. is repeated, xx. is wanting, xxii. is repeated,

xxiv. is wanting, xxx. is repeated, xxxvi. is wanting, xxxix. is

repeated in place of xliv., xlviii. is wanting, xlix. is repeated, lvii

is repeated after lxi., lviii follows twice, lix., lx., lxi. being

repeated in succession after lviii., lxvii., lxviii. are repeated after

lxviii., lxxxii. is wanting, lxxxiii. is repeated, lxxxii. stands for

lxxxvii., lxxxiii. succeeds for lxxxviiii, cclxv. succeeds for lxxxix.,

lxxxxii. is repeated for lxxxxvii., [in the Grenville copy this leaf is

correctly numbered], cxxxii is wanting, cxl. stands for cxxxviii.,

cxlxi. stands for cxlvi., clxxiv. is wanting, clxxxxxi. stands for

cci., ccxii. is repeated for ccxvii., ccxxxviii. is wanting, cclx.

stands for ccl., cclviii. is repeated for cclx.

 

The numeration by signatures is as follows: + iiij; a, 8; b—p, 6 s; q,

7; r,