In spite of Lanson's well known edition of Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques, students have shown comparatively little curiosity concerning the implications which might be drawn from the number of those letters which deal with Quakers and from the fact that those four letters are the first of the series. Lanson, without making any claim to completeness, has suggested possible sources other than personal contact for Voltaire's knowledge of Quakers, and Morize has called attention to an account of them given by Sorbière. Nevertheless the actual extent of French interest in Quakers, and the number of publications concerning them were far greater than either of the above commentaries would suggest.

One of the most noticeable characteristics of style in Wyclif's translation of the New Testament is his occasional use of a verbal form in -yng(e) preceded by to, as a rendering of a Latin future participle, as in Luke 9.44: for it is to comynge, that mannis sone be bitrayed in to the hondis of men = Filius enim hominis futurum est ut tradatur in manus hominum; Luke 13.9: And if it schal make fruyt, ellis in tyme to comynge thou schalt kitte it doun = et si quidem fecerit fructum: sin autem, in futurum succides eam. This construction is not found in Wyclif's original English works. It does occur, however, in other writings in Middle English; and since scholars have, thus far, been unable to agree as to its origin and classification, I have undertaken a detailed study of Wyclif's use of the idiom, with the hope that some further light may be thrown on its nature and origin. Before discussing Wyclif's use of the construction, however, it seems advisable to consider somewhat in detail the history of opinion on the problem.

In the course of collecting the material for a biography of Thomas Heywood, I came upon a passage which suggests that possibly the Earl of Southampton at one time patronized a theatrical company. The passage occurs in Heywood's A Funeral Elegie, upon the Much Lamented Death of the Trespuissant and unmatchable King, King James (1625):

Henry, Southampton Earle, a souldier proued;
Dreaded in warre, and in milde peace beloued.
Oh giue me leaue to resound
His memory, as most in dutie bound,
Because his servant once.

Pantisocracy, although usually dismissed with a casual paragraph in any discussion of Coleridge, presents a chapter in the poet's development which deserves to be more fully investigated. I shall endeavor in the present paper to trace the influences that awakened Coleridge's interest in Pantisocracy, and to follow the course of this interest down to its termination. In dealing with this subject, it is necessary to consider two questions: first, what travel literature was extant at the period under discussion (1790–1801); and second, what probability there is that Coleridge had access to these sources.

In the course of preparing an edition, with the kind permission of the Coleridge family, of the unpublished correspondence of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I have found, among the several hundred letters examined, five written by Coleridge to Lord Byron which afford a fuller view of the relationship between the two poets. The contact between Coleridge and Byron was brief, their correspondence being confined to the period between Easter 1815 and April 1816, the time at which Byron finally departed from England. It is known that in 1812 Byron interceded with the managers of Drury Lane for the production of Coleridge's Remorse and that he attended at least two of Coleridge's lectures in 1811 and 1812; but their personal intercourse apparently did not extend beyond those incidents and the exchange of a few letters. Most of Byron's letters to Coleridge have already been published, but the five letters which Coleridge wrote to Byron have never been published in full.

Although Puritans in the Elizabethan period were of many varieties, dramatists agreed in representing them by a single type. Whether this type was originally drawn from life, or was evolved from the presentation of the Hypocrite in the morality plays, there can be no doubt that the conventional Puritan of the Elizabethan stage was little more than an abstraction. Real Puritans even then were of many minds: some stood for Calvinism and some for re-baptism; some for a militant church and some for a passive; some were democratic and would let the congregation rule, and some believed in a presbyterian form of government. Others joined the Puritans merely because they objected to so much royal interference. The existence of so many diverse views among the Puritans may to some extent have necessitated a broad characterization of them. Thompson has shown, however, that even when dealing with a particular sect, as for example the Family of Love, Elizabethan playwrights failed to discriminate.

At the present time, the only known manuscript of Berceo's Martirio de San Lorenzo is the eighteenth-century copy that belonged to Padre Ibarreta, and Solalinde expresses the conviction that the Sánchez edition of the poem is based on the Ibarreta manuscript. On several occasions Sanchez mentions the fact that he had at hand the Ibarreta manuscript, and he likewise states that he had his own copy of several of Berceo's poems and that he used the Ibarreta version “para cotejar algunas que yo tenía, y copiar las que me faltaban.” That there is a close relationship between the Sánchez and Ibarreta versions of the Martirio de San Lorenzo is evident from the following facts; in both versions the poem is incomplete, containing only 105 stanzas; both versions have five verses in stanza 15; both versions use, consistently, the forms, ome, omes, sancto, sanctidat, lazdrar, judgar, nunqua; and they conform in the use of the exceptional forms cipdad 10d, cipdat 12d, Katolicos 2d, Karidad 10b, Karidat 47b. Furthermore, the three specific errors of construction or legibility mentioned by Sánchez are also found in the Ibarreta manuscript: the omission of Dios in 10b, omission of the rhyme word in 102d, and omission of seven letters in avrie despecho 105d.

The preface to Alastor, though at times obscure, ill-expressed, and digressive, is so much briefer and clearer than the poem itself that its interpretation of the work has, not unnaturally, been accepted without too close a scrutiny of the verse it explains. According to the preface, Alastor is an allegory: it represents a youth who is happy in study and in the contemplation of nature until suddenly, thirsting for “intercourse with an intelligence similar to” his own, “he images to himself the Being whom he loves,”—one who unites all that the poet, the philosopher, or the lover can require. “He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.” The remainder of the preface is given over chiefly to denouncing “those meaner spirits” who, no less than “the luminaries of the world,” “attempt to exist without human sympathy” but with whom the poem does not deal. The sounding, irrelevant moralizing of this paragraph tends to conceal two important observations: “The Poet's self-centered seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin,” and the Power of human sympathy struck him “with sudden darkness and extinction by awakening ... [him] to too exquisite a perception of its influences.”

The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1494 became, shortly after, the subject of an égloga by Francisco de Madrid, and the peace of Cambray in 1529, which, it was fondly hoped, would end the Franco-Spanish wars in Italy, was celebrated dramatically by Hernán López de Yanguas. The battle of Pavia (Feb. 24, 1525), falling between these two events and marking the culmination of the struggle, is discussed, from the Spanish point of view, naturally, in the present little play which has not thus far been noticed by the students of early Spanish drama. Like the other two it is a festival-play, combining with a political preoccupation the bucolic tone of the dramatic égloga, a type of which the origin may well be the fifth égloga of Juan del Encina “adonde se introducen cuatro pastores, . . . . y primero Beneito entró en la sala adonde el Duque y Duquesa estaban, y comenzó mucho á dolerse y acuitarse porque se sonaba que el Duque, su señor, se habia de partir á la guerra de Francia; . . . . y despues llamaron á Pedruelo, el cual les dió nuevas de paz. . . . .” The play is short, however, and although possibly intended for a performance or actually performed, it is close, both in subject-matter and external appearance, to the news-sheets in ballad-form which were fairly common at the time. The print which is here reproduced formerly belonged to D. Pascual de Gayangos, and is now in the Biblioteca Nacional, in Madrid. It seems to have been mentioned only by Gallardo. On its title-page a vignette represents a battle fought under massive city- or castle-walls by knights in full armour, on foot, some wielding swords, some daggers, several carrying shields, one of which, on the right, is painted with a large human countenance. In the left group of four warriors one has already fallen, pierced by a sword. Behind the right group of three may be distinguished a throng of helmeted figures in a thicket of tall lances.

In his study of The History of John Bull, Dr. Teerink by clearing up the curious dating of the Examiners—he shows that each number appeared on the second Thursday mentioned—has thereby fixed the dates of publication of the five parts of The History (March 6, March 18, April 17, May 9, July 31). He has also determined at least approximately the dates at which the several pamphlets were written, and has thrown light upon the matter in the pamphlets by references to historical events.

Critics of the Elizabethan drama are not agreed in identifying the author of The Puritan. According to modern opinion the initials, “W.S.,” which appear in the ascription on the title page of the play do not refer to William Shakespeare, Wentworth Smith, or William Smith. On the other hand, for neither Thomas Middleton nor John Marston, both of whom have been proposed as its author, has a clear case been established. The purpose of this paper is to present further evidence in support of Middleton's authorship.

Though scholars have long been familiar with Peacock's interesting statement concerning the strong influence exerted upon Shelley by certain novels of Charles Brockden Brown, no one has undertaken to define precisely the extent of Shelley's debt to the American novelist. Professor M. T. Solve in a recent article has ably analyzed the intellectual and spiritual kinship of the two men, and pointed out the general direction of the presumptive influence, but he notes no specific indebtedness beyond the borrowing of some details of gothic phraseology and the name Constantia. It is my present purpose to examine relevant passages from the works of Shelley in the light of Peacock's statement, with a view to more precise definition.

On a shelf in the magnificent New York library of Dr. Rosenbach is a somewhat dilapidated little vellum-bound manuscript, measuring about 5¾ x 7½ inches, which appears to have been written at the beginning of the second quarter of the seventeenth century. The pages are not numbered and there is no list of contents. The front leaf is defective at the bottom, and the first few leaves have been stained by damp on the upper right corner so that some words can no longer be deciphered.

If philosophy is the love of wisdom unconditioned, Shelley was as truly a philosopher as Plato; but if, as the Greeks taught, it is the love also of order, his right to the title may be questioned. There is some justice in the allegation that he was not a systematic thinker. Being an enthusiast rather than a critic, he made little effort to reduce his multiform ideas and impressions to strict order; if a new opinion seemed good in itself he was inclined to acknowledge it without first ascertaining whether or not it was consistent with others previously avowed. With the diffusive imagination of the dreamer he erected vast and indistinct outlines of theory wherein the logical mind seeks in vain for substance and particulars, though they harmonize well enough with the idealist's habit of generalization. Avoiding the word philosophy on account of this lack of system, I prefer to use the word doctrine in refering to the body of Shelley's opinion concerning Love.

Although Nicholas Grimald has been mentioned as a forerunner of English classicism, his use of the closed and balanced decasyllabic couplet has not been emphasized sufficiently to challenge the position commonly assigned to Beaumont, Sandys, Waller, or Jonson. I shall attempt to point out his neoclassic qualities, and to account for them in terms of his sources. In so doing I hope to throw light upon the early history of the heroic couplet, Grimald's position as a pioneer, and the relation of the Latin elegiac distich to English classical verse.