Читать книгу The Ancient English Poetry - Various Authors - Страница 19

61. Chaucer quotes the old Romance of Libius Disconius, and some others, which are found in this MS. (See the Essay, vol. iii. Appendix I.) It also contains several songs relating to the civil war in the last century, but not one that alludes to the Restoration.

62. Mr. Addison, Mr. Dryden, and the witty Lord Dorset, &c. See the Spectator, No. 70. To these might be added many eminent judges now alive. The learned Selden appears also to have been fond of collecting these old things. See below.

63. A life of our curious collector Mr. Pepys may be seen in the continuation of Mr. Collier's Supplement to his Great Diction. 1715, at the end of vol. iii. folio. Art. Pep.64

64. [In Percy's time Pepys was not known as the author of that Diary which will keep his name in remembrance so long as English literature continues to exist.]

65. [The Society of Antiquaries have published a catalogue of this collection by Robert Lemon, 8vo. 1866.]

66. Such liberties have been taken with all those pieces which have three asterisks subjoined, thus ⁂.

67. That the editor hath not here under-rated the assistance he received from his friend, will appear from Mr. Shenstone's own letter to the Rev. Mr. Graves, dated March 1, 1761. See his Works, vol. iii. letter cii. It is doubtless a great loss to this work that Mr. Shenstone never saw more than about a third of one of these volumes, as prepared for the press.

68. Who informed the editor that this MS. had been purchased in a library of old books, which was thought to have belonged to Thomas Blount, Author of the Jocular Tenures, 1679, 4to. and of many other publications enumerated in Wood's Athenæ, ii. 73; the earliest of which is The Art of making Devises, 1646, 4to. wherein he is described to be "of the Inner Temple." If the collection was made by this lawyer (who also published the Law Dictionary, 1671, folio), it should seem, from the errors and defects with which the MS. abounds, that he had employed his clerk in writing the transcripts, who was often weary of his task.

69. To the same learned and ingenious friend, since Master of Emanuel College, the editor is obliged for many corrections and improvements in his second and subsequent editions; as also to the Rev. Mr. Bowle, of Idmistone, near Salisbury, editor of the curious edition of Don Quixote, with Annotations in Spanish, in 6 vols. 4to.; to the Rev. Mr. Cole, formerly of Blecheley, near Fenny-Stratford, Bucks; to the Rev. Mr. Lambe, of Noreham, in Northumberland (author of a learned History of Chess, 1764, 8vo. and editor of a curious Poem on the Battle of Flodden Field, with learned Notes, 1774, 8vo.); and to G. Paton, Esq., of Edinburgh. He is particularly indebted to two friends, to whom the public as well as himself, are under the greatest obligations; to the Honourable Daines Barrington, for his very learned and curious Observations on the Statutes, 4to.; and to Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq., whose most correct and elegant edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 5 vols. 8vo. is a standard book, and shows how an ancient English classic should be published. The editor was also favoured with many valuable remarks and corrections from the Rev. Geo. Ashby, late fellow of St. John's College, in Cambridge, which are not particularly pointed out because they occur so often. He was no less obliged to Thomas Butler, Esq., F.A.S., agent to the Duke of Northumberland, and Clerk of the Peace for the County of Middlesex, whose extensive knowledge of ancient writings, records, and history, have been of great use to the editor in his attempts to illustrate the literature or manners of our ancestors. Some valuable remarks were procured by Samuel Pegge, Esq., author of that curious work the Curialia, 4to.; but this impression was too far advanced to profit by them all; which hath also been the case with a series of learned and ingenious annotations inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1793, April, June, July, and October, 1794, and which, it is hoped, will be continued.

70. Since Keeper of the Records in the Tower.