Members of the Association are requested to see that copies of monographs, studies or dissertations in the field of the Modern Language which may be printed privately or in University series during the current year be sent to the editor of the appropriate section of the American Bibliography.

Nothing in connection with Arthurian legend is more familiarly referred to than Arthur's Round Table. From 1155 when Wace first mentioned it down to the present day the Round Table has symbolized the idea of fraternal fellowship, whether as of old in chivalrous deeds of arms or as today in the asperities of political discussion. It has become perhaps the most famous piece of furniture ever invented by the mind of man and the concept of it, at once simple and profound, has kept curiously enough even in our own day the idea of a real table around which real men gather and of the symbolic value of their association.

The Cardigan Manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was stolen from the Library of Lady Cardigan during the summer of 1923. After passing through various hands, it came into the possession of the Vassar College Library in September, 1923, and was restored to the owner, Mr. George Brudenell, Deene Park, Peterborough, England, the following August.

It has long been believed that, before Part I of The Faerie Queene was published (in 1590) portions of Books I and II had been seen by Fraunce, Peele, and Marlowe. It is known that Gabriel Harvey had manuscript of The Faerie Queene for criticism before April, 1580; that Raleigh in Ireland and Queen Elizabeth in London passed judgment on some part of the first division before it was put into print; and that a circle of Lodowick Bryskett's friends near Dublin heard Spenser tell his plans for the whole work and also saw “some parcels” of it.

It cannot be denied that the personages in Browning's great poem, The Ring and the Book, are of the poet's own making, and he himself would have been the first to acknowledge them as his own creatures. On the other hand, his repeated assertions that, in mingling his fancy with the material derived from the Old Yellow Book, he has not misinterpreted the facts contained in his source, and the insistence upon the poet's historical fidelity by the editor of the “Book” and other critics, have been regarded with suspicion. Indeed, the question has recently been raised whether The Ring and the Book is not a glorious misinterpretation of The Old Yellow Book.

Although Spenser, speaking in the character of Irenæus in the View of the State of Ireland, declares himself as not “professed” in religion, he shows in general such profound interest in religion that his ecclesiastical and theological views have provoked abundant discussion. In examining the question of his religious predilections one might expect to gain further evidence from a careful study of his use of the Scriptures.

The reference to Saint Ambrose in Chaucer's Life of St. Cecilia (C. T. G. vv. 271 ff.) has never been explained. Although Chaucer in this reference was clearly following his Latin source, Tyrwhitt regarded these lines as an awkward interruption of the narrative and wished that he could find reason for omitting them. Skeat gave up the problem with the words: “I cannot find anything of the kind in the works of St. Ambrose.” Professor Lowes, in his admirable article upon the interpretation of the two crowns, does not mention this Ambrose passage, or attempt to explain the expression the “palm of martirdom.” His only reference to Ambrose is incidental to his relation of the story of the bee lighting on the infant's lips, from the sermon on St. Ambrose by Jacobus de Voragine.

So many things about the Middle Ages seem strange to the modern reader that it is easy to over-emphasize the differences between the points of view and the methods of medieval and of modern writers. Especially is this true of the writers of fiction. We seldom get more than a brief glimpse of the medieval fiction-writer, specifically the author of medieval romances, actually at work; for example, when we find Chrétien de Troyes using the old book from the cathedral library at Beauvais in the composition of Cligès. Generally we have only the finished product on the one hand, and on the other hand, “sources” of various kinds, folk-tale or saga or classical story. Where the relation between the finished product and the source is close and obvious, as in such romances as Sir Amadas and Sir Isumbras, the mere identification of the source reveals the method of the writer: he found an attractive old story and retold it, adding such embellishments as his audience would probably like. Nothing could be simpler. But the writers of the more courtly and sophisticated romances were not mere redactors; they were authors, in very much the same sense as the modern novelist is an author. And like most modern novelists, they showed their inventive powers, not often in finding new material, but usually in making recombinations of old material. They sometimes had the advantage over the present would-be producer of “best sellers” in writing for specific courtly groups presided over by single leaders of taste. It was therefore relatively easy to discover what their public wanted. Thus Chrétien wrote his Chevalier de la Charrette to satisfy Marie de Champagne, though it seems not to have been exactly in accordance with his own ethical standards.

An uncertainty as to the social position of franklins in general, and of Chaucer's Franklin in particular, has occasionally manifested itself since the early part of the nineteenth century. In 1810, Todd quoted an elaborate note from Waterhous's Commentary on Sir John Fortescue's De Laudibus Legum Angliae, which tended to show that franklins did not belong to the gentry. Todd was unable to square this with the fact that (Chaucer's Franklin was “at sessiouns,” since by a statute of Edward III, which he cited, justices were seigneurs, and that he was “ofte tyme” a knight of the shire, since by another statute members of parliament were “chivalers et serjantz des meulz vaues du paies.”) Todd was thus left in doubt as to the gentility of the Franklin. As a later examination of Fortescue's remarks will show, it is not he but his commentator who must be blamed for lowering the status of Chaucer's sanguine country gentleman. If Todd had been of firmer mind, or if he had studied the subject more deeply, he would not have left the matter in doubt—a trap for unwary feet in later times.

Of Della Casa's life (1503-1556), little need here be said. Brought up in Florence and educated at Bologna, at first he showed, though a keen student, more interest in the amusements than in the serious things of life. In his middle twenties he went to Rome, where he continued his study of the classics and developed still further his aptitude for gaiety. A taste for high life and for classic study led inevitably to the church: at the age of thirty-one he definitely embarked on an ecclesiastical career, held various offices and commissions under different popes, and divided his time between Venice, Florence, and Rome. Towards the end of his life he became secretary of state to Paul IV, but was never made a cardinal. He was always interested in letters, was a member of various academies both gay and learned, and wrote much both in Latin and Italian, prose and verse.

Robert Burton has never been known as a commentator on The Faerie Queene and he certainly did not aspire to that honor, but it is my purpose in this article to show that unconsciously he left a valuable set of notes on Spenser's work. Burton was not a critic and his one critical remark about The Faerie Queene sounds oddly to-day, although readers of M. Jusserand's remarks in his Literary History of the English People on Spenser's borrowings from Ariosto will remember some ideas that chime with what Burton says in the passage in question. In his analysis of love-melancholy in the Third Part of The Anatomy of Melancholy he remarked casually:

Our new Ariostoes, Boyards, Authors of Arcadia, Urania, Faerie Queene, &c., Marullus, Leotichius, Angerianus, Stroza, Secundus, Capellanus, &c., with the best of these facete modern poets have written in this kind, are but so many symptoms of love. Their whole books are a synopsis or breviary of love, the portuous of love, legends of lovers' lives and deaths, and of their memorable adventures, nay more, quod leguntur, quod laudantur, amori debent.

“It is good to love the unknown,” wrote Charles Lamb, and we should perhaps hesitate to try to pierce the obscurity which surrounds the bright genius who, in the Secunda Pastorum, gave to the English drama its first native characters and its first true plot. But such obscurity ill becomes genius, and this man was not only our first dramatist, but also—as I shall try to demonstrate—one of our first literary rebels, holding more definite theories of poetic art than many a free-verse poet of the present day.

Holinshed has heretofore been considered the primary source of Drayton's Battaile of Agincourt. “Its faithfulness to Holinshed,” declares Mr. H. H. Child in his article on Drayton, “brings it frequently into touch with Shakespeare's King Henry Fifth.” Similar is the statement made by Garnett in his edition of the poem:

Of the six English miracle plays' dealing with the Sacrifice of Isaac, no two bear such marked resemblance as do the Chester and Brome plays. The close verbal agreements between these two have long been recognized and the problem which they present has been the subject of much discussion. To explain this special relationship two theories have heen advanced: first, that the plays are derived from a common source (either of French or early English origin), second, that one play is based directly on the other.

Last summer I undertook a systematic examination of the Registers of the London parish of St. Botolph Aldgate, in the hope that they might yield some new material in regard to the members of the Elizabethan acting companies. The Registers of this parish seemed worth the combing for several reasons. In the first place, within the limits of St. Botolph, along its western boundary, lay Houndsditch, which was tenanted by pawn-brokers and dealers in cast-off clothing, just such gentry as might attract the patronage of indigent players who were called upon to supply their own wardrobes. Houndsditch, in turn, led directly to Bishopsgate. The proximity of this district to Aldgate supplied another reason for searching the records of St. Botolph's, inasmuch as Elizabethan actors were likely to establish themselves in the neighborhood of their employment; and in and about Bishopsgate stood several playhouses: on Bishopsgate Street proper stood the Bull Inn (1575-1590); and on Gracious [Gracechurch] Street, the Bell Inn (1560-1576) and the Cross Keys (1588-1596). Or, following Bishopsgate to its northern end, one arrived within short distance at Shoreditch with its famous Theatre (1576-1599) and Curtain (1577-1634?). Nor were these neighboring playhouses the only ones which might have attracted actors to St. Botolph's. At least one theatre, the Boar's Head, existed within the confines of the Aldgate district. The exact location of this playhouse (or converted inn) is open to doubt, but whether it was within or without the Bars, the Boar's Head was clearly on Aldgate High Street and well within the parish of St. Botolph.

The first of the “Two other very commendable letters” in the correspondence between Spenser and Harvey has been reprinted in every complete edition of the poet's works since it was first printed by Hughes in 1715 and has been frequently cited by scholars during the past century, either because of the general light which it throws on this oddly assorted pair, or because of its famous reference to the the “surceasing and silence of balde Rymers,” or because of the evidence which it supplies of a close relationship at this time between Spenser and the Earl of Leicester. Nevertheless, there seems to be no general agreement among editors and scholars as to the precise date at which this letter was written; and as a result, every one who has quoted it has put forward his own assumption as its proper interpretation. It is the object of this paper to discuss these assumptions, and to determine, if possible, the true explanation of the date at which this letter was composed.